Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Crimson Curse ❯ Chapter 12 ( Chapter 12 )

 

Chapter 12

 

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Two Days Later…

(Lunar-Eclipse: 9 Days Away)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Karin walks down the sidewalk, gripping her fingers into the newspaper she held in front of herself, obviously pissed about the headline on it.

 

“I can't believe it! I cannot fucking believe it!”, she curses, “All that hunting with not one sight of a vampire, but someone was still killed in over the weekend during the day!”, she shouts, chucking the paper into the trash. If anyone in the city could sense auras they'd describe her aura as a raging wild fire because she was so angry.

 

“Hey, it wasn't like we didn't try or anything. We just wasn't in the right place at the right time”, Vincent explains, again trying to quell her fiery temper as he walks beside her, not trusting himself to not crash his motorcycle in his present-condition.

 

“The sooner we kill Sephiroth, the sooner Tokyo will be safe…”, she angrily growls, stomping a few steps in front of Vincent, her College uniform's skirt brushing against her thighs and the top of her knees.

 

Vincent had to force himself to look away when he caught himself staring at Karin's back-side and legs, a blush enflaming his cheeks, `What the hell am I thinking, gawking at Karin like that!', he mentally curses himself.

 

“You alright, Vincent?”, Karin asks, having stopped walking and had turned around to face him, “You look like you're getting a fever”, she says, walking back to him and puts her hand onto his forehead.

 

“What makes you think that?”

 

“Well, your cheeks are red…”, she replies, removing her hand from his head, “Hmm, no fever…”, she mutters, turning to walk away again, but if she stayed facing him longer she would have seen his cheeks turn a darker shade of red.

 

`I'm getting a fever alright…', he thinks, watching her walk away before he starts to follow her again `It's the fever of Love…But I don't know your feelings…', he sighs.

 

`Is it just me or was he actually checking me out? And he's blushing about it!', Karin thinks, lightly blushing as she continued walking.

 

Unknown to the two Vampire-Hunters, a pair of lackluster blue eyes with a hint of green around cat-slit pupils watches them from the shadows of a nearby alley.

 

“So the wielder of the Banpaia Ten-Ki and the one cursed with the Eternal-Bloodlust, have fallen in love, huh?”, the figure whispers to it's self, “I must go inform Lord Sephiroth…”, it mutters, before vanishing deeper into the shadows.

 

(A/N: I smell trouble in the wind…!)

 

 

 

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-Tokyo Community College-

 

 

 

 

 

“Well, this is my stop”, Karin jokingly says, stopping just outside the gate to the College and turns to face him, “I'll see you after class…”, she waves, turning to head through the gate, when Vincent suddenly grabs her by the wrist, “Huh…?”, she gasps, looking down at his hand holding her wrist up to his face, a light blush beginning to form on her cheeks.

 

“Here…”, he simply says, placing an umbrella into her hand, “It's going to rain today…”, he explains, hiding the blush threatening to enflame his cheeks.

 

“Uh, thanks…”, she replies, slightly stunned, “See you later…”, she vanishes through the gate into the College courtyard.

 

“Later…”, he mutters, before turning around and starts walking back the way he came, his blush breaking free onto his face.

 

`He held my hand!', Karin screams inside her head, the voice inside her mind sounding rather like a fan-girl's shrill scream, `I can't believe it! He actually held my hand!', she thinks, clutching the hand he had grabbed to her chest like it was a priceless treasure.

 

“Hey Karin! Earth to Karin!”, Tifa's voice calls out, as she waves her hand in front of her face, “Hey, stop daydreaming!”

 

“Huh…?”, she gasps, snapping out of her daze, “Oh, Tifa… Hi…”

 

“Still gushing over him, aren't you?”, her friend laughs.

 

“It isn't my fault he's dreamy…”, she says, blushing, “Oh look it's Cloud!”, she points out, “Hey Cloud over here!”, she shouts, waving her arms in an attempt to catch his attention.

 

Cloud just continues to walk towards the building with his uniform half-heartedly put on but it was to be expected with his left arm in a cast and sling, not even acknowledging Karin or Tifa's attempts to get his attention as he walks like his head was in the clouds, disappearing inside the College.

 

(A/N: No pun intended!)

 

“What the hell is with him?”, Karin asks.

 

“Don't worry, he's been like that all weekend”, Tifa explains, “Come on, let's get to class”, starting to walk towards the building.

 

“I just need to slap some sense into his head…”, she mutters, punching her fist into her palm.

 

“Pent up rage?”

 

“Yeah, it's been a crappy weekend”.

 

“Well, there is no need to beat Cloud up for not feeling alright”, the brunette warns, “Or I'll have to beat you up for beating up Cloud!”

 

“Is that a threat?”

 

“No, it's a promise!”

 

“You're on!”, Karin exclaims, playfully swinging her fist at Tifa's shoulder, only for Tifa to catch it in her hand, like always.

 

“That sure lightened your mood!”

 

“It sure did!”, she shouts, running up ahead closely followed by Tifa, as the two girls raced to the building, “I win!”, she cheers, raising both her arms into the air as she was the victor once again, reaching the lobby first.

 

“Only because you used to be on the track team…”, Tifa pants, trying to catch her breath as she leans against a wall.

 

“Oh please Miss. Karate-champion, that doesn't mean it wasn't a close race”, Karin states, still gloating over her win.

 

“Whatever… Miss. Jack-of-trades…”

 

Karin just sticks her tongue out in mockery, “I know that I am!”

 

 

 

 

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Seven Hours Later…

-Almost 4pm-

 

 

 

 

 

Vincent stands leaning against the fence surrounding the College with his eyes closed, “She should be getting out soon…”, he sighs, opening his crimson orbs, looking up at the over-cast sky.

 

Suddenly, a female's scream rang out from somewhere near by, but it could only be heard by someone with hearing 3-times stronger than a human's normal range of hearing.

 

“Someone! Help me!”, the woman screams.

 

He glances down at his watch; 3:55pm, “I should check this out. It could be a vampire-attack”, he whispers, then starts running towards where the scream came from.

 

Vincent runs eight blocks to an abandoned lot and sees a young woman struggling to get away from a young man with green cat-slit pupil eyes and fangs.

 

`Vampire…', he thinks, pulling his peacemaker from his pocket and switches off the safety, `I don't think Karin will mind if I kill one vampire without her…', he mentally says, taking aim at the vampire's body and squeezes the trigger.

 

The bullet pierces the vampire's left shoulder, causing him to release the young woman as she collapses to her knees on the ground. Vincent briskly walks over to the woman's side to check on her as he kept a close eye on the vampire writhing in pain on the ground.

 

“Are you alright, miss?”, he asks, extending his hand out to her.

 

“I'm fine…”, she says, her face hidden behind her bangs, “Now that you're here…”, she suddenly thrusts her hand into the left side of his abdomen.

 

“Urk…!”, he grunts out in pain, surprised that the woman had suddenly done that, “What…?”

 

“Heheheh!”, the woman laughs, lifting her head up enough to reveal her yellow-green eyes with cat-slit pupils and the elongated canines hidden behind her lips.

 

`Damn it… It was a trap…!', Vincent curses in his head, raising his gun up to the decoy's head, but she simply smacks it from his hand and far from his reach.

 

“You're so tough when you have distance, but when you're up close you don't have a chance with your gun…”, she taunts, as she wraps her fingers around one of his internal-organs and squeezes hard.

 

“Uh…”, he painfully groans, as he could feel the female vampire crushing his kidney, and he could a burning feeling travel through his kidney and slowly start to circulate through his veins; invading his body, from her finger-tips.

 

“Do you feel that? The burning sensation you're feeling is my poison slowly working it's way into your system…”, she mocks, “Soon it will leave you paralyzed and helpless to fight back…”

 

“We'll see…about that…”, he forces out, struggling to move an arm or leg to break loose, but his body refuses to obey as he starts coughing up blood.

 

“That is enough poison, my dear sister”, the voice of the male vampire says, as he stood back up, clutching his injured shoulder, “Lord Sephiroth wants him alive…”

 

“But I thought he couldn't die”, she replies, withdrawing her hand from inside Vincent's body, allowing the immortal to collapse onto the ground, his breathing becoming hindered by the poison in his blood-stream.

 

“True, but our Lord needs to have his blood devoid of poison by the time the blood-moon arrives…”

 

`Sephiroth… he wants my blood… but why…?', Vincent wondered in his head, as he vision began to become hazy, “Karin…”, he weakly whispers, as the rain begins to fall.

 

 

 

 

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Meanwhile…

 

 

 

Karin suddenly looks up from the book she had been reading quietly in class, “Huh…?”, she gasps, looking out the window at the falling rain, `I could have sworn I just heard Vincent call out for me…', she thinks, glancing over at the clock hanging over the teacher's head, “Just one more minute and the bell will ring…”, she whispers.

 

(Rrrrriiiiiiinnnnnnnggggg!), the bell rang, and Karin quickly grabs her stuff and the umbrella and bolts out the door.

 

“Vincent sure was right about it going to rain…”, she mutters, opening the umbrella and begins walking towards the gate, and as she rounds the corner she was expecting Vincent to be standing there; leaning against the wall like before, but he wasn't there, “That's strange… Where could he be?”, she questions, looking around.

 

“Isn't he coming?”, she asks, after waiting for a few minutes, “Maybe… his symptoms came back and he's at home sicker than a dog again…”, she concluded, starting to walk towards her house, `Well, I have enough power to kill at least a dozen vampires. So I shouldn't be worried about being defenseless…', she thinks, starting to hum a song to herself.

 

“Been a long road to follow

Been there and gone tomorrow

Without saying goodbye to yesterday

Are the memories I hold still valid?

Or have the tears deluded them?

Maybe this time tomorrow

The rain will cease to follow

And the mist will fade into one more today

Something somewhere out there keeps calling

Am I going home?

Will I hear someone singing solace to the silent moon?

Zero gravity what's it like?

Am I alone?

Is somebody there beyond these heavy aching feet

Still the road keeps on telling me to go on

Something is pulling me

I feel the gravity of it all”, she sings, to lighten the dreary mood the weather brought on, until till she had walked seven blocks from the College and was approaching the empty-lot on the eighth-block.

 

“So this is the Great Vincent Valentine…”, came the mocking voice of a female from behind the chain link fence.

 

“Huh…? Vincent…?”, Karin mutters.

 

“The same one who has been giving Lord Sephiorth a pain in the fangs…”, a male's voice replies, “The bastard shot me…”

 

“What…?”, she gasps, flattening her back against the building beside the lot and peeks around the corner into the lot, seeing Vincent laying on the ground with a puddle of water-diluted blood pooled around his body with a female vampire pinning him to the ground with her knee. She could also see Vincent trying to get her off of him, but Karin could see that he was getting weaker from the loss of blood that he was still losing, “Vincent?”, she whispers.

 

“He's still fighting back, brother. I didn't put enough poison into his body…”, the female states.

 

“Don't put anymore in, the Lord will be pissed if you do”, the male says.

 

“Fine…”, she hisses, reaching down and wrapping her hands around Vincent's neck and applies pressure, cutting off his air-supply, “If I can't add more poison, I might as well just make him pass out…”, she spat.

 

`Vincent!', Karin screams in her head as she watches as Vincent trying to pry the vampire's hands from his throat but he had lost too much blood to even do that now; his attempts were in vain. Suddenly, Karin spots something shiny near the gate into the lot, `I can use that to free him…', she thinks, smirking as she headed for it.

 

`This isn't good… I've lost too much blood and now… I can't breath…', Vincent panicky thinks in his head, as the edges of his vision began to turn black and slowly consume his sight, `I'm sorry, Karin…', he thought as his hands slipped from his around attacker's wrists.

 

“Hehehe!”, the woman chuckles, releasing her hold on his neck after he falls limp on the ground.

 

Suddenly, the sound of a gun-shot rings out in the abandoned-lot and the female vampire is forced to stumble away from Vincent's unconscious form, clutching her chest.

 

“Wha…?”, she gasps, looking over in the direction the shot came from, and sees Karin standing there under the cover of her red umbrella holding the silver-gun the vampire had knocked from Vincent's hand, still smoking.

 

“Get away from him, bitch!”, Karin growls, cocking the gun with her thumb.

 

“Uh-uh-uh!”, the female vampire taunts, picking Vincent up off of the ground and uses his unconscious form as a shield, “If you fire, there's a chance you'll hit him…”

 

Karin un-cocks the gun.

 

“Good choice”, she purred, “Now put the gun down onto the ground…”, she orders, smiling gleefully as Karin did as she asked, “Now kick it over here…”

 

“I don't think so…”, Karin replies, raising her left hand up and aims it at the cowardly vampire, “Existing in this place now are uncleanable lies

I wonder when it has began

How far do

I have to go the see the light…”, she begins to silently chant, as a white aura starts to form around her and focuses into her left hand, her hair beginning to lift up and flutter in an un-natural wind, “You live in shadow of shade and commit the eight sin

Unrequited existence will turn

Everything into nothing…”, the aura turns silver and rushes forward, passing right through Vincent's body and strikes the female vampire as she begins to scream in pain, before falling over; lifeless, and Vincent collapses in a boneless-matter to the ground.

 

“Vincent!”, she screams, running over to her follow vampire-hunter's side, “Vincent, speak to me!”, she pleads, shaking his shoulder, then notices the second vampire stumbling away, “Wait! Get back here!”, she shouts, starting to get up to chase him, but feels a hand grab the front of her blouse, “Huh…?”, she gasps, looking down at Vincent.

 

His blood-red eyes were glazed over in pain and half-opened, “Don't go after him…”, he weakly says, shaking his head, “I had… shot him with… one of my liquid-silver filled bullets… He won't last long…”, he explains, a trail of blood escaping from the corner of his mouth as he talked.

 

“It's okay…”, she nods, gently cradling his head onto her lap, “I'm going to take you back to my apartment. So don't worry”.

 

“I'm not…worrying…”, he forces out, before passing out again.

 

“Vincent!”, she shouts, “He passed out…”, she whispers, removing the scarf from her uniform and balls it up as she presses it into the hole in his abdomen, “There, that should slow the bleeding…”, she says, standing up as she carefully picks Vincent up off the ground; draping his arm over her shoulders, and begins walking, dragging Vincent's feet on the ground. Only stopping once to bend over and pick up Vincent's gun from the ground, putting the weapon into her uniform-pocket.

 

 

 

 

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