Moka slowly lowered her leg and looked down at herself. The rosary had been removed. With her memories somewhat hazy, Moka tried to remember what had caused her awakening, but only got a confusing jumble of images. She did remember that oaf trying to molest her seconds before her transformation though, and looked to the ground. If that idiot had managed to tear off her seal while trying to get at her bra…
“Are you alright Moka?” an even voice asked her from behind.
The vampire spun around at the question and looked over to the redhead. With the reminder, a few more memories came to the surface and she frowned at the boy who’d sold her out in order to try and save his own skin. “You.” Putting herself back in the current moment, Moka answered his question. “”I’m fine, no thanks to you of course.”
The verbal jab sent Kurama’s mind racing. It wasn’t what the girl said, but it was how she said it. As far as Kurama could tell, Moka’s personality had undergone a definite shift since her aura had been released. “As I said before, if I had stepped in, Saizou would have just tried something else at a later date. Now, you should probably put this back on before a teacher comes and finds you in your true form.”
Despite her usually cool mind in stressful situations, Moka couldn’t help but become stunned by the sight of the redhead pulling out her rosary from his back pocket. “H-How did you get that?” the vampire shouted as she recovered herself. No one should have been able to remove her rosary. She had thought that Saizou may have been able to do it out of some freak accident, or he simply broke one of the links on its chain.
“I removed it before I handed you over to Saizou,” Kurama explained.
Thanks to the rather useless explanation and her confusion over what was going on, Moka’s emotions quickly switched to anger. “HOW? No one should be able to remove my rosary.”
In order to try and quell the girl’s growing aggravation, put on his best disarming smile. “Well I have to admit, finding the frequency that I needed to attune my aura to in order to get past your cross’s wards did take almost half an hour. But we had plenty of time for that while you were… escorting me around the campus.”
The fact that he actually said that with a strait face unnerved Moka even more. Thirty minutes or thirty years, it shouldn’t have mattered. What the hell was a monster like this doing at the academy?
Despite the fact that his face showed little emotion beyond the false smile, Kurama was starting to get a little worried. An expert at reading others, the time he had spent with Moka so far told him that she absolutely shouldn’t be acting like this.
Does the cross seal away more than just her power? Kurama wondered, or was he just jumping to conclusions because of personal experience? Moka acted nothing like he’d heard vampires were supposed to be, and that intel came from before Hollywood had managed to pollute vampire mythos.
“Now that the danger’s passed, put this back on. I don‘t want one of the teachers catching us” Kurama said before holding out the sealing artifact. “Come here and I’ll help.”
It was slight, but Moka caught the subtle undertones of first part, it was a command, not an offer. A part of her wanted to teach the upstart boy that no one ordered her around. But… Shuichi wouldn’t be saying something like that unless he could back it up, this little incident had shown he thought ahead. Plus, her rather abrupt awakening had caught Moka off guard, she was already starting to feel tired from just one attack.
“Sure,” the vampire replied before walking forward.
Kurama prepared a few surprises should the girl try anything once she got into reach. But, it didn’t come down to that. Moka kept her hands to her side and let the boy reattach the rosary, then quickly collapsed into his arms.
With the rather unexpected turn of events, Kurama gritted his teeth to suppress a yell along with the oncoming main at moving so suddenly with the gashes in his back, and quickly reached down to grab the girl, then pulled her close with his good arm. “Are you alright?”
When he got no reply, Kurama frowned at his latest predicament. He couldn’t just carry her back, his shoulder was still injured. But leaving an innocent young schoolgirl just laying on the ground in the middle of a monster school was just asking for trouble.
Kurama supposed he could…
well…
uh…
… do nothing but stand there and let the girl rest her head on his shoulder while she recovered, maybe?
“… Ah crap.”
Stupid girl, Kurama mentally cursed the annoyingly cute vampire. Why couldn’t she be evil or something? He knew how to deal with evil monsters.
Meanwhile, thanks to her quick vampire recuperation abilities, Moka was already starting to come around. Slowly, her mind wandered out of a dreary haze. Strength started to return to her legs. One by one her senses began to return.
Smell…
Moka sniffed her nose at the tantalizing hint of food. A full whiff later confirmed she had indeed found a source of blood that smelled better than any she had ever encountered.
Touch…
Her head turned and Moka’s nose bumped into the side of something. With her hunger calling out, she quickly took a bite and penetrated the blood’s container.
Taste…
Before Moka even began to drink, her tongue was tantalized by a drop of blood more delicious than anything she had ever tasted before. She immediately tightened her hold on the source of such magnificent food and began sucking as much as she could.
Sound…
“Just what do you think you’re doing?” an aggravated boy growled into her ear.
And finally, sight…
Moka opened her eyes and shifted them over to the source of the voice while continuing to dine on her spectacular meal. She blinked when she saw the boy’s face. “Shuichi…” Then took another sip.
Well, that was what she meant to say, but it came out more like “Shrrghe.”
“CUT THAT OUT!” Kurama shouted, finally loosing his cool before pulling the vampire off his neck.
Moka couldn’t help but whine at the separation from the best meal she had ever had. The redhead’s blood was much richer than any from the blood packs she usually drank, it had a ton of vitamins and just the right amount of iron. After drinking something like that, going back to normal blood packs was going to be unbearable!
Although now that she was separated from her food source, Moka realized where they were, and remembered the events that had transpired just a few moments before. “Saizou! Oh my gosh, where is he? What happened? … and where’s that delicious smell coming from?”
Kurama gritted his teeth at the last remark, but managed to retain control over his anger at Moka’s latest annoying action. From what she just said, it was as if the whole fight had been locked away in her mind and the personality quirks that existed a moment ago were gone.
Kurama filed it away for later and just decided to lie to her. “I took care of Saizou. Now let’s get going.”
As he walked past her, Moka gasped at the gashes on his back. “Shuichi you’re hurt!”
“I’m fine.”
Moka quickly matched his pace, looking concerned. “Did Saizou do that?”
“Yes.”
With the boy giving her such curt answers, Moka took the hint that he didn’t walk to talk about it. Not wanting to be left with an awkward silence, she quickly found another subject. “Can I lick the wounds?”
“NO!” Kurama shouted before increasing his pace. Maybe I should have gone to that Yagami Academy school. At least the people there would have been sane, the demon thought to himself as the vampire chased him back to the dorms.
And so began Kurama’s life at Youkai Academy…
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(Posted Sat, 25 Apr 2009 05:29)
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