The scene before him gave Kurama a strange, disturbed nostalgia. The landscape of Youkai Academy was reminiscent of the Demon Realm, more than likely an attempt to copy the demons’ home. Not that any of the demons here actually came from the Demon Realm, most of them lived in small enclaves away from humanity with copy landscapes like this one. But instead of filling him with a since of security and familiarity, the dead trees, rocky ground, and multiple gravestones gave Kurama a slight feeling of unease.
He took that as a good sign. He didn’t belong to this kind of world anymore, he didn’t want to.
The sound of someone screaming behind him broke Kurama out of his thoughts, and he turned his head back to see a girl in the academy’s uniform speeding towards him on a bicycle, fighting to keep from loosing her balance and falling over.
He looked down to the bags he was carrying, then back up to the girl speeding towards him. If Kurama dropped the bags to dodge, the girl would hit them and crash. If he didn’t, the girl would hit him… and still crash.
A second later, Kurama let his luggage go and jumped back, then stepped to the left. There was a loud bang as the girl on the bike collided with his larger suitcase and fell forward.
Moka Akashiya wasn’t having the best of days.
It started out nice enough. She arrived at the academy and was excited to be going to school for the first time in what seemed like forever. The surrounding scenery had so much character to it she decided to take the long way around and wasn’t paying attention when she went off the beaten path, loosing control thanks to a landscape that wasn‘t made for biking. Now she had probably just ran over someone, Moka really couldn’t tell since she had closed her eyes to the oncoming disaster, and was waiting to land face first right on the rocky ground.
Yep, she was about to bruise her face, ruin her makeup, get her new school uniform covered in dirt.
… any second now…
“You can open your eyes you know.”
Not for the first time, Kurama wished he had put more into developing his physical strength. He held the girl up by the back of her uniform and waited for her to realize she could just stand up; she was heavier than she looked. The girl gave a sudden jerk, and then slowly uncurled from the halfway cannonball she had tried to slump her body into before putting her feet onto the ground and straitening up.
Now that she wasn’t about to kill him, Kurama managed to get a good look at the girl. To the casual observer, she looked like an above average high school girl with long pink hair, green eyes, and a somewhat gothic fashion sense with her choker and the styled silver cross that hung from it. Kurama could tell her demonic aura was being suppressed for the most part, and a quick glance at the choker told him it was the cause.
Curious, it looks like the seal is-
“Oh, I am so, SO SORRY,” Moka cried to her unknown rescuer… then winced when she realized she had been shouting into his ear.
She immediately backed away and quickly bowed in apology before glancing down to check on her bike and the stuff she had run into. Thankfully, her bike didn’t seem any worse for wear. There was a small dent in one of the boy’s suitcases, she supposed it could have been there before… well, she hoped it was.
“Here, let me help.” Moka reached down and picked up the suitcase she hoped that she hadn‘t run into, then held it out for the boy to take. However, the slight damage her bike had done to the luggage became apparent when the latches came undone and the suitcase opened up, allowing numerous clothes and other assorted items to come falling out.
“… Oops.”
Kurama rubbed his forehead with his thumb and index finger to help repress the urge to kill the annoying girl. “No real harm done I suppose. You weren‘t hurt after all.”
The halfway restrained hostility in the boy’s voice made Moka wince. She supposed he did have reason to be upset. Although, it wasn’t really her fault, the whole thing was an accident really. Then again, he didn’t seem to be too mad about the whole thing so maybe he understood and was trying to be nice. At least as nice as someone can be to the person who nearly runs them over, breaks their stuff, and gets all their clothes dirty.
He even showed some concern for her wellbeing.
All things considered, with him being a monster and stuff, that was pretty nice.
“Um, I’m Moka Akashiya,” she said before trying to think of something else to say. “I’m a vampire.”
Kurama had been ignoring the girl’s babbling for the most part, but the last bit managed to cut through and made him pause. Vampires were pretty rare in the human world, and nonexistent in the demon one; Kurama really didn’t know that much about them compared to his usual encyclopedic level of knowledge when it came to demons.
Vampires were above the usual level of demons thanks to their thirst for human blood. Most of the information about them had been watered down and twisted over the years thanks to human novels and cinema. Sunlight caused only discomfort, not death, and garlic was ineffective. A stake though the heart would kill them, as would anything else if it was jammed through the vital organ. Water was the only real weakness that he knew of off the top of his head, it weakened and burned them. Being completely submerged for long enough would kill a vampire, not from lack of oxygen though.
Knowledge heir powers had also been clouded over the years. Vampires couldn’t change form or hypnotize people with their gaze. The only natural abilities they had were the power to quickly regenerate large amounts of damage, and a penchant to exert physical force via their demonic auras much in the way Yusuke could. The difference was their power required no real effort and was constantly in effect to varying degrees.
When Kurama noticed the girl was still standing there, he figured she was waiting for an introduction. “Shuichi Minamino,” Kurama told her after standing up. For a moment he thought about adding his species, but decided against doing so right now. “You really should get going. No need for us both to be late to the entrance ceremony.”
Moka blinked when Kurama bent back down to continue picking his things up. She hated having to just leave it at that. For a moment she thought about staying around to help, but figured that it might be better to let him cool down a bit before trying to start a full conversation. “Um, let’s try to meet afterwards, okay?”
After the girl finally took off and Kurama stuffed the rest of his dirty clothes back into his baggage, making sure it would really close, he looked back up and frowned. Strange, I’d thought vampires looked down on the other races in this world.
Kurama shook his head and picked up his things. More than likely he could just avoid her until they gave out homeroom assignments. A girl as cute and ditzy as that would attract plenty of things to distract her and make her forget about Kurama. The last thing he needed was someone like her hanging around him, it would be too much of a headache.
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(Posted Fri, 03 Apr 2009 05:01)
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