"What's the matter, Young Hunter-san?" Sara asked, approaching Zero from behind. The woman was not allowed off the Moon Dorm grounds without Yuki's consent since the girl had decided to take responsibility of her. Due to Charlotte's own judgement, Kaien didn't trust Sara either, deeming that Charlotte had the best intuition of all of them and he entrusted Yuki with keeping an eye on the older pureblood.
Sara giggled with a soft smile as she approached Zero who had turned around, "If you don't mind, I'll give you my blood. I have an interest in a being like you." Her blue eyes darkened with the sign of a bad intent and Zero narrowed his eyes.
He found that he could not move, though, and it wasn't panic that caused his violet eyes to flash a dangerous red─it was anger and irritation. While he hated all purebloods, Sara Shirabuki was the next one down the list from Kaname Kuran that he hated with a passion. He knew that it would be best to follow Charlotte's judgement as well, and if Charlotte didn't like Sara, then he shouldn't like or trust her either.
At the thought of Charlotte, he was able to feel a sudden life force inside of him, one that he was quite familiar with. Focusing on the familiar feeling of someone else inside of him, he was able to regain control of his body and he took a menacing step towards Sara with angry eyes, his fists clenching and Bloody Rose becoming almost heavy inside the breast pocket of his trench coat. He didn't care if it was not ordered, he'd shoot to kill her without a second thought if she tried anything with him, but he secretly hoped she wouldn't because he wanted to see what Charlotte had in mind for the pureblood.
"Pl-please stop. Please, don't make fun of Zero-kun, the next president of the Association. Don't bring trouble to the academy," Maria Kurenai spoke up shakily. It was rare for her to speak against someone, but it seemed that she had a new found courage. Zero didn't know her that well, but he knew that she had been a rather fragile girl despite being a vampire.
Sara tilted her head to the side, abhorrence striking through her, "I'm sorry, who are you?"
"Maria," the grey haired girl answered, her voice strong now and no longer shaky. "Please, leave Zero-kun alone, Sara-sama." Maria walked around, coming to stand between Sara and Zero, she facing the pureblood and staring directly into her eyes, almost as if challenging her. Both of their eyes flashed red, Sara's brighter than Maria's, but the Level B vampire did not back down.
"Knock if off, the both of you," Zero said after a few seconds, breaking the thick tension. Both of them looked up at him, Maria turning entirely to look up at the man that she adored. She had missed out on her chance with Ichiru, but there was always Zero and she was not going to miss her chance again. "Get back to the dorms, Vampires."
He didn't stick around to see if they listened to him, for he turned on his heels and began to walk to the Sun Dorms, leaving the two female vampires by themselves. He muttered very quietly to himself, "You better fucking fix this, Charlotte."
-
Charlotte blinked a couple of times to rid the blurriness of sleep from her eyes. She was fully aware of someone running their fingers gently through her hair, but she was much more aware of the mouth-watering scent completely filling her senses. Her gums itched, her fangs wanting to drop down. Her throat was burning horribly and all she could think about was sinking her fangs into this person's flesh and taking every last drop of blood from them.
"You're awake?" Takuma asked softly, removing his hand from Charlotte's hair as she moved to climb on top of him, straddling his waist and placing both of her hands on his chest. Her head was bowed so he couldn't see her face, her hair coming to block his view. "Oh, you want blood."
He pushed her hair aside and cupped her cheeks, lifting her head so he could look at her face. He wasn't surprised at all to find that her eyes were a vibrant red, but he was surprised to see a sudden innocence in them. She looked almost childlike with how she was looking at him. Her mouth was slightly open and he could see a bit of her fangs. Her blonde eyebrows were furrowed together as she looked down at him.
She pushed his hands away from her face as she leant down, burying her face into the crook of his neck. She breathed his wonderful scent in deeply, moving her arms so her fingers could tangle themselves in his soft blond hair. She opened her mouth and slid her tongue across his skin, marvelling at the sweet taste of it. Her heart beat picked up at the same time that Takuma's did.
Twirling strands of his hair in her slim pale fingers, she grazed her fangs over the spot on his neck where she intended to bite. Just before she bit down, she tightened her fingers in his hair, pulling his head more to the side. As her fangs entered into his flesh, Takuma gasped─not out of pain, but rather out of pleasure. His arm came up to snake around her waist and his hand fisted the material of her shirt as his breathing came out in short gasps.
Without warning, Takuma pushed Charlotte away from him, but he gripped her arms as she looked down at him incredulously and he flipped her onto her back. Though her mouth and chin were covered in his blood, he kissed her roughly, almost hungrily. His own blood did not have the same appeal that someone else's blood would have, it didn't even taste good to him─it was rather metallic to his tastes. However, as his tongue ravaged the inside of Charlotte's mouth, the slight taste of his blood that was on her tongue did not bother him at all.
Charlotte gripped the sides of his shirt, pulling his body closer to hers. Though they both tried not to, they were breathing quite heavily out of their nose so as to not have to break away just for air.
But a knock on her door caused them to pull away with a start. As they looked at each other with wide eyes, Hanabusa shouted from the other side of the door, "Get up, Charlotte, you're not missing another day of school! Charlotte!"
Clearing her throat, Charlotte snapped, "I'm up, dammit!" She heard muffled muttering and then retreating footsteps walking away from her room door. She stayed quiet for a few more seconds, listening to light muffled sounds of people walking around the dorms as they got ready for class. She then looked back up at Takuma, letting his shirt go and reaching up tentatively to swipe her thumb across his bottom lip, wiping away the blood that had gotten onto him.
She sighed, pushing at his chest gently so he sat up, getting off from on top of her and coming to sit beside her. She leant her head on his shoulder and said softly, "You should go get ready for class."
She leant away from him, allowing him to stand and stretch. He gave her a soft smile, nodding, "I should. I'll see you in class, Charlotte." He gave a tender kiss to her forehead before he left her room, waving to her slightly before closing her door.
Charlotte sat in silence on her bed for a couple of seconds as she looked down at her hands. She had finally got what she wanted: Takuma and his blood. Though, despite their words the night before, she knew that he was not hers. Not yet, at least. Not if Sara was still in the picture.
Charlotte also had Sara, she realised. She could get the woman's blood easily enough, though, she supposed that it would be better to wait out her actions since she was in such a close proximity to her. Charlotte was under the same roof as the woman she despised and had been trying to see what she was up to. Did she still need her blood, or was she able to now observe the woman now that they practically lived together?
Deciding that she could make her decision later, Charlotte rose from her bed and walked to her closet. She pulled her hair up into a messy bun and stripped out of her clothes. Her uniform hung neatly and on display on the back of her closet door. Though everyone knew she wasn't going to wear it, Kaien had ordered her a couple, anyway. She doubted she'd touch it at all whilst she was there.
Now clad in a clean pair of pants and a bra, she reached out for a pair of burgundy skinny jeans. Slipping those on, she pulled a black long sleeve button down from a hanger. The front half was black sheer and see through with white outlines of cat heads on it. The back of the shirt was solid black.
She slipped her feet into a pair of black suede Chelsea boots before walking to her bathroom. Turning on the light, she pulled her hair from the top knot. She ran her brush under the cold tap before she ran it through her hair. Deeming that her hair was well brushed and knot-free, she moved on to brushing her teeth, and then to eyeliner. Seeing that she had enough time, she framed her eyes in the black cream eyeliner and finished off with a wing. She coated her lashes in black mascara before painting her lips with a liquid matte lipstick that matched the colour of her jeans.
Fluffing the roots of her hair, Charlotte made sure her natural waves looked decent before she left the bathroom and her room altogether. With her mobile in her back pocket, she followed behind the other students to the main building.
She was quite glad that there were no fangirls outside of the gates waiting for the Night Class to come out, which allowed them to leave the gates at any time to get to class. Charlotte was amongst the last few to straggle out and to class. Though unlike other students, she wasn't particularly in a hurry. She didn't need to be in in a hurry, anyway, for she had no real desire to be there.
Sauntering into class, she plopped down into a seat in the back. And much to her annoyance, a couple of Sara's lap dogs came to sit by her with curious and excited eyes. They reeked of Sara and impure blood, a combination that Charlotte found to be revolting. She had met many ex-humans before, but the impurity of their blood had never been quite as strong as these girls'.
Curiously, one of the girls dared to speak, "We can wear our regular clothes, Charlotte-sama?"
Gritting her teeth, Charlotte answered, "You can't, but I can." She didn't bother to look at the girls, but she knew they were making a displeased expression at her answer. Leaning back in her seat, Charlotte glanced over at the girl nearest to her.
A blank expression falling onto the girl's face, she offered Charlotte her wrist. Grasping onto her arm tentatively, Charlotte began to bring the blonde girl's wrist to her mouth.
"Taking without permission, Charlotte? That is so unlike you," Sara hummed in that fake gentle voice of hers. Though the woman wore a soft smile on her lips, her eyes showed that she was angry and Charlotte smirked. "I'm going to have to ask you to leave my puppets- I mean friends- alone."
Laughing humorlessly, Charlotte said, "Why do I need your permission when I have hers? She belongs to herself, Sara, not to you." Though the girl's offering was invoked by Charlotte, she wasn't going to reveal that.
Keeping eye contact with Sara, Charlotte bit down into the girl's wrist as Sara's other puppet gasped in shock at Charlotte's open defiance. Their view of other people was completely obstructed by Sara and her lies, believing that Sara was an all powerful being and those who defy her also got harshly punished by her. So, Charlotte's defiance and a silent challenge were sure to bring about Sara's wrath, in their eyes.
Charlotte released the girl's wrist and licked her lips, turning to look at the girl who had just given her a donation. She gave her a soft and sad smile, cupping her cheek gently, "I'm sure your blood tasted good at one point. But I'm afraid Sara's pungent sludge that runs through her veins has tainted the taste." Charlotte kissed the girl on the cheek before she stood on top of her seat and leapt across the tables to go where her brother was.
Being in public, Sara was not going to voice her anger or screech with irritation. She was going to pretend that what Charlotte did never happened, so as not to ruin her perfect image that the students and her ex-human girls saw her in. But she made a vow that Charlotte was most definitely going to pay for her actions soon. Very soon.
When Charlotte plopped down beside her brother as they waited for the teacher, she sighed and leant her head on his shoulder as he whispered, "Provoking her is going to get you nowhere, Charlotte."
Charlotte grinned, "I know, but it's fun as hell."
-
Kaien sat behind his desk with a troubled expression. He had his hands clasped together whilst his chin rested on his knuckles and he looked at Charlotte thoughtfully. She was sat across from him with a curious expression. Though Kaien's face was youthful, he didn't have his usual cheery and goofy expression, which made him look older than he usually did. Though to be fair, Kaien was pretty old, his youthful face deceived people; however, he looked older than usual.
"Charlotte, I am quite surprised you're behaving yourself," he said quietly, leaning back into his seat and he exhaled heavily. "With everything that had happened recently, I'd have expected you in here much earlier─the first day, perhaps. And I know of your dislike for Sara, so I'm very impressed that you're in here for something as small as this."
Charlotte laughed, running her hand through fading pink hair and licked her lips as she leant forward, "I'm surprised that she had the audacity to report me rather than dealing with me herself." She shook her head, a smile on her face even though she wasn't the least bit amused. "That bitch. I'm not mad for her actions, just annoyed. Being who she is, one would think that she'd handle these situations by herself. She seems to think that she is stronger than me, so why didn't she handle this herself?"
Shaking his head, Kaien said, "You know the rules, Charlotte-"
"Yes, I do. I help reinforce those rules this time around, and I didn't break any rules, Kaien." She leant back into her chair again, giving him a soft smile, "Human blood doesn't appeal to me in the slightest, which is what differs between other purebloods and myself. Whose blood I took, it was one of Sara's pets─an ex-human. No rules had been violated on my part." She shrugged and waved it off, "And besides, the little bird offered it to me. The only reason I partook was to annoy Sara."
Fifteen minutes after Charlotte openly disobeying Sara, the woman had gone off to report Charlotte's 'wrongdoing', though she hadn't done anything wrong. She supposed Sara's actions were to embarrass Charlotte more than anything. But it was quite hard to embarrass someone who didn't care. Charlotte didn't care that her actions had been reported, she'd take blood from one of Sara's pets again if she wanted... mainly because she didn't quite get the reaction that she wanted.
Kaien sighed tiredly and leant back in his chair as well, dropping his hands into his lap before he reached up with one hand and pinched the bridge of his nose. "And what did you get out of it? Aside from annoying Sara, what other benefits did you get from taking the girl's blood?"
She frowned, "I could taste traces of Sara's blood─or what I'm assuming is Sara's blood. Though, I don't think it's nearly enough to allow me to finally see what she's up to. I think I have to get right from the source..." She tapped her chin thoughtfully, humming softly before tilting her head to the side, "If I can get one of her girls on their own, perhaps I can do the same thing to her as I did to Shane. Then I'd have someone on the inside. But I think we're all too close together─Sara would smell me on her." She frowned again, her eyebrows furrowing together with annoyance.
"I will not get into any more Night Class affairs unless someone is a habitual violator. I promised Yuki that I'd stay out of it, so I trust that you'll watch over the vampires. Yuki says that she will, but you and I both know you can do a far better job than she can." He then smiled at her softly, his eyes raking over her body and taking in what she was dressed in. It was so comfortably nostalgic for him to see her breaking the uniform rule; he didn't mind that she wasn't wearing the uniform because an uncomfortable Charlotte was a handful.
"I'm going to pretend that I never heard the complaint from Sara. I will also ignore any further complaints that I'll most likely get from her about you. And I'm also going to overlook your lack of uniform... again." He stood from his seat and Charlotte stood from hers. He made a gesture, signalling that their talk was done and she was now going to be shown out.
Kaien stopped at the door, his hand on the knob as he turned to Charlotte, "Please, be careful around Sara, and protect not only Yuki but the other students as well. I trust you more than you'd believe, Charlotte."
He opened the door and she walked out, but she turned once she was in the corridor, smiling warmly at him as she bowed, "Yes, Headmaster." Straightening her posture, she walked down the corridor and back to class. It was the second hour now, the class would be well into their second lesson and Charlotte was not above disrupting that second lesson.
She sauntered down the corridor, not in a hurry to get back to class. Though it had been a while since she had taken that girl's blood, the pungent taste of it still regretfully lingered on her tongue and she made a face. She walked passed the classroom door and to the water fountain to get some water to wash out the rancid taste.
Straightening out when she heard footsteps behind her, she wiped the water from her mouth and turned around. Zero was stood at a reasonable distance behind her with his hands in his pockets and in casual wear. She rose an eyebrow at him, "Don't you ever sleep?" She gestured to his clothing, an amused look on her face.
He rolled his eyes, "How do you know I don't just sleep in my day clothes?"
"You change out of your uniform to put on regular street clothes as pyjamas?" She rose both of her eyebrows in question as her eyes raked over his attire. He had had a smug look on his face before, but it vanished and turned into a glare at her question. She smirked at him, "So why are you here?"
He hesitated, something completely unlike him and he glanced around the corridor despite that the halls were empty. He briskly walked forward and roughly grabbed her arm, dragging her down the corridor and to a supply cupboard. Neither of them needed light, so they didn't bother with pulling the string, for they could see just fine in the dark.
"I need some of your blood," he told her quietly, looking pained to ask such a question. She was taken aback at his revelation and she gave him a perplexed look. She didn't expect those words to ever come out of his mouth and be said to her.
Then she realised why he had come to her with a request such as that. Her face relaxed, as well as the rest of her body, and she rolled up her sleeve and offered him her wrist, "It's so Sara has no control over you whatsoever, isn't it?"
He grabbed her wrist but looked at her with surprise, "How did you guess-? You saw what happened last night, didn't you?" When all she did was nod, he sighed and his grasp around her wrist tightened. He grit his teeth with annoyance, "I want her gone as much as you do. I'm only asking for your blood as a precaution that she try and make me do something that we'll all regret. I would never ask this of you if it weren't important. I hate the taste of your blood, actually." He made a face as he looked at her wrist. "But I also don't hate it..."
She chuckled, "You hate it because it can't compare to Yuki's." She ignored his startled and angry expression at her words and she shrugged, "But you also don't hate it because it's pure─all vampires crave pure blood, but they crave and prefer their beloved's blood more than the purity." She flexed her wrist to give him a more visible access to the vein that he would bite into. "Now, go on, child. I've got a class to disrupt."
He glared at her before his eyes flashed red and his fangs lengthened just before he bit into her wrist. The feeling of blood leaving her body was something that she would never get used to, and she didn't quite like the feeling, to begin with. It had been a while since she had given her blood to anybody. Compared to most vampires─and purebloods at that─she didn't just give her blood out willy-nilly or to have more control over someone. She usually gave out her blood if it was beneficial to both her and the person who was taking it. Like when she had been giving her blood to Shane in order to break the sire bond he had to Rido.
A little less than a minute passed when Zero finally pulled away from Charlotte's wrist, letting her go and wiping the rivulets of blood from his chin. He licked his lips as his fangs went back into his gums and his eyes returned to their usual violet. Surprisingly, his colour improved and he no longer looked ill, though he was still incredibly pale─but he had always been pale, so Charlotte wasn't worried entirely.
"Alright, love birds, out of the damned cupboard before I send you both to the Headmaster." The door was suddenly swung open and Kaito was standing there with an annoyed expression.
Zero made a fake gagging sound and Charlotte said, "Don't be revolting, Kaito. We were having an important discussion in there; it's rude to interrupt."
Kaito tilted his head to the side, "Discussion? I wasn't aware that a discussion required your sleeves to be uneven, Charlotte." He tugged on her sleeve that had been rolled up and it fell down her arm loosely and with wrinkles.
She shrugged, "I fed my brother and just forgot to pull my sleeve down. Don't jump to conclusions, and stay out of my business!" She snapped as she fixed her sleeve, buttoning the end of it so that it wouldn't slide up her arm and wasn't so loose.
Kaito gave her a sceptical look, his eyes narrowed and his lips curling in slightly, "Why would you be giving Hanabusa your blood?"
"I want to protect my dearest brother from the Wicked Witch of the West, and giving him my blood will keep him from falling under certain... influences..." her voice trailed off as did her eyes. She then frowned, "Speaking of the bitch- I mean Devil. Look at this gem." She leapt forward and plucked the pitch-black spider off the wall. She kept it from melting away and returning back to its owner. She knew the consequences of when a familiar was forcibly held, forced to maintain its shape. It caused its owner pain and Charlotte didn't feel bad in the least.
She smirked as she looked down at the spider, now holding it by one its legs, "Now, if you'll excuse me, boys, I'm going to return this little guy back to his mummy. Toodles." She gave them a quick wave before she jogged down the hall and towards her classroom, leaving Kaito and Zero to watch after, curious as to what she was going to do with the spider, mainly because they both knew of her slight phobia of them.
Charlotte slid open the door to the classroom, not bothering to try and be quiet or inconspicuous. The teacher stopped talking at once and everyone but Sara, Hanabusa, Senri and Rima turned to gape at her. Sara's ex-human girls were looking at her wide eyed as she wore an irritated expression whilst marching over to Sara.
One of the girls was tending to Sara who looked to be in pain as her face was scrunched up and she rubbed her temples. She heard someone approaching and she peeked her blue eyes open, Charlotte's blurry figure coming into her view.
Using her telekinetic ability, she pushed all of the girls away from Sara so it was just her and Charlotte. Sara forced open her eyes and Charlotte flicked the spider at her, a livid expression on her face as she spat, "Keep your little beasts out of my sight and away from me, you nosy bitch. If I see any more of those disgusting things scurrying around and poking their noses in places that they shouldn't be, I won't be so kind as to cause you a little discomfort." She turned on her heels, bowing to the teacher in a wordless apology before she began to walk back out of the room, muttering, "It's like you're bloody asking me to punch you in the mouth."
-
Word count: 4,436.