Night Twelve:
I awoke early the next day so that I could see Mother and Mikami off. Just as I was ready to head out, Mikami entered the room. I smiled at him as he entered the room, looking very unlike himself with his nervous demeanour. He gave a tight lipped smile in return. I sat down on my bed, and looked around him.
"Where's Mother?"
"I asked her to come a little bit after me. I told her I wanted to give you something in private." He explained, taking the bed across from me. I noticed the brown bag hanging from his left side. I looked back at him with my eyebrows knitted together.
"Ok. So what is it?" I was starting to get impaient, which caused my tone to come out a bit harsher than I had intended. He nodded, and reached into the sacheal hanging on his side.
"Just read these when you're alone. I don't want Mother to see these because I had gotten them from Father's study room before we came here. I thought you might want to take a look. I'm sure they were planning on telling you when you came over otherwise they wouldn't be out." He handed me a rather thick folder filled with papers. I had to carefully hold them together.
"I...What is this?"
"You'll see. Just put them away before Mother sees it. The last thing I want to hear is her gripping at me all the way home." I nodded, and leaned over towards my dresser. I then opened the bottom drawer, and quickly settled the folder in there, closing it right before Mother came into the room.
"Ah, I'm glad to see you up, and ready dear."Mother hugged me, and kissed the top of my head. I smiled, closing my eyes. I opened them back up as she took a seat next to Mikami."We'll be heading off, but just take care fo yourself, ok? No more spraining anything or getting hurt, no matter how it came to happen." I nodded.
"Ok. I promise." Mother took a deep breath, and then stood up. She glanced at Mikami, who looked at me a bit longer before standing up behind Mother.
"Take care. We'll see you soon." Mother said softly.
"Don't forget what I told you." Mikami added. Again, I just nodded.
"Yeah. Ok."
"Bye, dear."
"Bye." Mikami waved as he exited the room. I sighed as they left the room. I looked down at the hard floor for a moment before reaching over for my crutches.
"You should really stay off that leg, ya know. It'll help it heal better that way." I looked over at Yuuki, pausing with my hands on the crutches.
"Well, I can't stay in bed, and baby it."
"Classes are off the rest of the week . Why don't you just rest today?"
"Why are you even here?" I asked, taking my hands off the crutches, and sitting back in the bed.
"Zero wanted me to check on you, and see how you're doing. He would have come with me, but Head Master wanted him to run some errands."
"Why didn't you go with him?"
"I told him I'd check on you. See if there was anything you needed." I shook my head.
"No. I'll be ok. I guess I'll just take it easy today since classes are off." Yuuki smiled, and nodded as she stood awkardly in the door. I sighed heavily." You can come in, ya know. I'm not going to bite your head off." Yuuki smiled nervously as she walked into the room, and sat down on Nae's bed.
"Are you sure you're going to be ok? I mean, won't you get lonely?"
"I'll be ok. Besides, my brother gave me something to read, so I'll have something to do to pass the time."
"He gave you a book to read? Sounds like something Ichijo would do."
"It's not a book. It's a folder with some...I'm not sure what, but he said it was important so...It'll keep me busy." Yuuki nodded, and then stood up.
"Are you sure you going to be fine all by yourself?" I noddd, smiling through tight lips.
"I preferr to be alone...Sometimes. Today's just one of those days. Thank you." Yuuki nodded, giving me one last look before walking out the door.
I sighed as the door closed behind her. I looked towards the drawer that held the folder Mikami had given to me. Some part of me was really curious to find out what could possibly be in there, but another part was perhaps a bit more apprehensive. Another part wanted to know what it was that my parents were keeping hidden from me, and another part just wanted to ignore it. Maybe it wasn't really for me to know, but still my curiousty was there, and strong. In the end, curiousty won out.
I reached out, and pulled the folder out just as carefully as i had out it in. I then sat up in the bed, tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear, I opened the folder, my heart beating fast in my chest.
Report 20187
April 21
Hunt for the serial killing Level E succsefully excuted. Found an infant, around nine months old, outside our home town. No signs of any parents around. Thinking of adopting. She could prove to be useful to us someday. Sayori is thinking of retiring, and finding a regular day job for the sake of our kids.
-Signed Hiroshi Matsumoto
Report 34901
May 25
Another perfectly done hunt. We lost Masaomi, but sacarficies do have to happen in order to matain their careful secert from humans. The child is growing execptionally well, and seems to be very well rounded, and smart. I have no doubt she will grow to be a rather useful hunter that could perhaps rival the best of us all. I am excited to see just how much she will progress in the coming years.
-Signed Hiroshi Matsumoto
Report 46019
April 22
Sakika and Mizuki have just turned six years old. We had a nice celebration with just family, and a few of their friends. Katen Kaito has agreed to start training them to be Hunters. Sakika seems excited, but Mizuki seems relctuant. He's such a queit boy, I wonder how he'll truly fair in the upcoming years.
-Signed Hiroshi Matsumoto
I looked through many papers, mostly copies of reports my father had sent to the Assocation over the years. Many of them spoke about me, and my progress. I stared at the first report many times. My pulse raced as the realzation slowly sunk into my mind. I was adopted.
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Although I knew it had to be true, I still found it hard to believe. I looked through the rest of folder, as if trying to saitisfy some need in me to disprove what I knew was true. Some part of me deeply resented the fact that my parents never so much as bothered to tell me the truth about me while another part was deeply relieved. Don't get me wrong, I loved them very deeply. I mean, they took me in, and raised me as if I were their own for almost seventeen years. I moved past the reports, and onto the photos that were accompanying them, but they were only simple pictures of our family.
Several were of me, most were about me actually, through various stages in my life. There was me as a very small baby seemingly refusing the milk Mother was offering me in a bottle. It was clerar that I was two seconds away from throwing a fit. Then, after moving past a few, there was me as a small toddler getting dressed on my own. There was a piccture of a six year old me, my hair in a ponytail with a clip holding back my bangs, holding my first hunting weapon, which was an anti- vampire gun named Red Thunder. There was me at fourteen after my teacher had taken me on a hunt to learn. I was proudly holding up my anti-vampire sword, clearly trying to show off. Then there was me before I came to Cross Academy with Mizuki. He had a relcutant look on his face while I was grinning like an idoit.
There were several family photos as well. Some were of Mother, most were of her when she was younger, holding a thing rope-like weapon, and Father with his pistol. There was Sanae, Mikami, and Mizuki as well. Sanae holding me, and playing with me. Mikami shooting. There weren't many of Mizuki at all.
I shifted through several pictures of other family memebers, and friends before I finally came up on some photos that weren't of any people I recgoinzed at all, but I knew, just from their looks alone, what they truly were. These were pictures of vampires. Not the Level E that Father and Mother hunted. No, in fact, these ones seemed rather composed, Rather sane, in fact. It really shocked me, considering that Father had always expressed nothing but hatred for their kind. Why was he keeping photos of them? But as I looked closer, something else shocked me. These people were the exact same people that I had been dreaming about for awhile. The same ones that always seemed to be giving me nightmares.
Just what was up with that? And who were these people? And what did they mean to my dad? To my family? Perhpas, even more importantly, what did these people mean to me, personally? They looked familiar for other reasons than they had been showing up in my dreams, but I just couldn't put my finger on it. I sighed, and put the folders away before I had gotten too upset.
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Just before dinner, I had finally decided to get dressed, and head back down to the Dining Hall. All afternoon, all that stuck in my head was what was in that folder. At that time, I wanted nothing more than to go home, and talk to my family. I wanted my parents to tell me everything they had been hiding from me. Everything that I needed to know in order to get this cleared up. I wanted to speak to Mikami, and ask him why he felt it was important to give me the folder before my parents even had a chance to explain to me anything that was going on. Didn't he even attempt to think about what that would put me through emontionally? My entire life thinking that they were my family, only to find out that I was wrong competely threw me off.
At the same time, I wondered if I should put some effort in finding out who the people in the photos were, their identies. At the same time, I wondered if it was even wise to figure out who they were, and what their connection to me was exactly. I wanted to know why my father had thier photos in his folder. Just everything about the situation was off. It bothered me so much, I could bearly eat. I merely stared at the steak, and potatoes in front of me with a blank look.
"Hey, Sakika, are you ok?" I glanced over to one of my friends, a girl about my age with straight white-blonde hair, and grey eyes. Her name was Mai. I nodded slightly.
"I'm fine. I'm just feeling a bit sick."
"You should really see the nurse. There have been some students that passed out from amneima. You should be careful that it doesn't happen to you. Eat your protein." I laughed slightly, despite my rather dour mood, and slowly began to cut into my food. Mai smiled slightly at me before contuining on with her meal.
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As nigth fell over the world, what had been troubling me the entire day had finally gotten to me more than I could handle. Despite the night, and the cold making my ankle throb, I knew exactly where I had to go to get any answers. Unfourtanly that meant I had to pay a visit to the Night Class.
So, I had gotten my weapon, strapping it in place, I re opened the folder, choosing the photos of the vampire family, and tucked them into my jacket. I then grabbed the crutches, not that I really needed them at this point anymore, it was just nice to take my weight off of the throbbing foot. I had walked out of the dorm when I heard a whistle behind me. I sighed, and looked over at Yuuki and Zero as they both walked over to me. Zero had a scowl on his face, but that wasn't out of character for him.
"Umm, yeah?"
"It's past curfew. What are you doing out of your room?" Yuuki had a tone that I hadn't heard from her. Though the new tone threw me off, I still was able to fight it off enough to scowl back, and quickly reply.
"I'm a Gaurdian as well, ya know."
"The Head Master gave you time off because of your injury. Do you want to make it worse?" Zero snapped with more anger than he usually displayed.
"I feel fine, and I can't sleep anyways."
"You should still head back to your room. You can't afford to make that injury any worse." I knew what they were saying was true, but I wanted to know about the people in the photograph. I was too stubborn to merely let it go.
"I don't, but-"
"There is no 'but's just head back before I make you go back."
"Zero! Be nice!"
"I am being nice, she's just being stubborn." I sighed heavily, and rolled my eyes.
"You know what? I'll just head back to my dorm. There. That'll solve the problems." I turned back, and started walking back to my dorm.
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"Stupid Zero. I bet he thinks he can just boss me around now because I caved in, and came back. I tell you what, I didn't cave in because of them, I just didn't want any trouble, and if he thinks that he can just boss me around, he has another thing coming. WHere the hell is Nae? Wait, am I actually hoping she'll come back? WHat the hell is wrong with me?" I was merely talking to myself as I was changing out of my uniform, and into my pajamas, a dark colored tang top, and pants.
At this point, I had just gotten on the shirt , and was removing the stockings when I heard something move in my room. I felt my whole back tense up, the same way the muscles tend to tense up when someone is scared. My whole body became stiff as I focused all my engery on trying to sense anything out of the ordinary. My hand reached for my short short purely out of habit. My hand tightened around the handle, my pulse racing as I heard a slight movement. I was ready to attack when a hand went around my mouth, preventing any sort of noise coming out, and a strong hand wrapped itself around my own wrist, preventing any movement.
"Please, don't make a sound. I don't want to hurt you." At that moment, I felt a tongue gently lick at my neck, and a pair of sharp fangs sank into the skin of my neck...