Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Crimson Curse ❯ Chapter 13 ( Chapter 13 )

 

Chapter 13

 

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-Karin's Apartment-

One Hour Later…

 

 

 

 

 

“Where the hell did my god-forsaken keys go to, again?”, she curses under her breath, as she fumbles her hand inside her pockets searching for the her house key, “There you are… you lousy good for nothing…”, she mutters, slipping her key into the lock of her front-door, turning the key to unlock it and practically kicks the door open as she drags Vincent's prone form inside, leaning his body against the wall in the area where you're supposed to remove your shoes in as she turned to close the door.

 

“Vincent…?”, she whispers, crouching in front of him to check on him, brushing a wet clump of his mid-night black hair from his face, his skin had taken on a sickly pale-ivory color, “He's still losing blood…”, she worriedly mutters, noticing the rain-diluted blood puddle forming under his body, before quickly removing her shoes and running to her bathroom for some bandages, `Why hasn't his wound begin to heal, yet?', she thinks, grabbing her heavy-duty first-aid kit, `Did I hear that Vampire right? Did she really inject poison into his body? That's probably what isn't letting him heal!', she assumes.

 

Karin returns to his side and begins to carefully remove his jacket, then cuts open his tank-top and gently peels the shirt from the still bleeding wound; revealing his well-toned chest and injury to her eyes. With one hand she lightly traces over the firm muscles under his skin while her other hand dug around inside the first-aid kit looking for the antibiotic-spray, “There it is…”, she mutters, pulling it out, then with the hand she had been tracing his chest with grabs a rag and begins cleaning the blood from his wound, “This is going to sting…”, she whispers, popping the cap off of the spray and presses down onto the nozzle, causing him to gasp out in pain in his sleep. She then presses a gauze-pad to the wound and secures it in place with medical-tape, then proceeds to remove his wet shirt, shoes, socks, and pants, leaving him in his boxers as she slips him into a dry white cotton-kimono to keep him warm, “There…that should do for now…”, she quietly says, tears forming in her eyes at the condition Vincent was in as she lifts him off of the floor and half-carries, half-drags him to her couch and lays him down on it.

 

“Vincent…”, she whispers, tracing her fingers down the flawless skin of his fever-flushed cheek, `I know why Sephiroth wants me. But what does he want with Vincent?', she thinks, brushing a stray hair from his face.

 

His breathing was so shallow that Karin could have sworn that his wasn't breathing if it wasn't for the rise and fall of his chest as his lungs inflated and deflated with air.

 

“At least he's still breathing…”, she sighs, momentarily going into her room to change her clothes.

 

 

 

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A Few Hours Later…

 

 

 

 

`It's almost night-fall…How long is he going to be unconscious for?', Karin thinks, wiping the sweat from his face with a damp cloth, causing him to groan, opening his mouth and she could see his canines lengthen into fangs as he starts panting for breath, `He's in no condition to be tormented by his curse's requirement to drink blood right now!', she says in her head, knowing that his mind was screaming at him for blood, “But what can I do…?”, she whispers, knowing she had no stash of blood to relieve his pain as she watches him suck the blood from his spilt-lip, “I guess I have no choice…”, she says, standing up and heads to her kitchen to get a knife.

 

She returns to his side gripping the knife in her right hand and slowly draws the blade across the palm of her left, flinching in pain as the blade cut into the flesh and making herself bleed and lets the blood drip into Vincent's partially-opened mouth.

 

His tongue slips out from inside his mouth to lick the dripping blood off of his lips, his glazed over blood-red eyes slowly open, the pupils completely dilated making them look distant and vacant.

 

“Hey, there…”, she says, smiling down at him as his eyes drift off in her direction.

 

But instead of replying, Vincent simply bolts up and grabs her, sinking his fangs into the healed-over bite-mark causing her to briefly scream out in pain and surprise.

 

“Vincent…?”, she mutters to him, tears building in her eyes as he mindlessly drank her blood, satisfying his hunger. She had to bite her lip when he began to suck harder, it didn't really hurt but it was very uncomfortable.

 

After he had gotten his fill, he unburies his fangs from her flesh, “I'm sorry…”, he mutters, starting to fall backwards onto the couch again, “…but thank you...”, he adds, his back landing on the couch, “…Karin…”, he trails off as he passes out.

 

Karin just stayed still kneeling on the floor, gasping for breath, sweat dripping off her chin, and feeling light-headed at the sudden loss of a pint of her blood, she knew it was wise to remain still for awhile after a blood-donation, not like she did donate blood but she had helped out at one and seen people try to move too soon; her teacher had passed out in the hall ten minutes before English-class began during her Senior-year in high-school and didn't return until half-way through class.

 

(A/N: This is a true event! My English teacher did pass out in the hall and he didn't come to class until the middle of the period!)

 

She slowly crawls over to the couch, taking the damp cloth from where it fell and dabs her blood from his lips, “You're welcome…”, she whispers, her hand trembling as she withdrew her hand from his mouth and applied the cloth to the bite-mark on her neck, leaving it there to adsorb the blood-flow while she wrapped a gauze bandage around her left hand to stop the bleeding, before getting up and stumbles into her bathroom to examine the damage Vincent caused.

 

“It's not too bad…”, she mutters, looking the wound over and sees the holes where his canines pierced her flesh, she could also see the indents of where his incisors pressed down against her skin and that she wasn't bleeding too much, “There must be something in his saliva that causes the blood to clot…”, she sighs, relieved that she wouldn't have to go to the hospital to stop the bleeding as she puts antibiotic-cream and a band-aid onto the bite.

 

She goes into her room to retrieve a blanket and pillow, she carefully lifts Vincent's head up and puts the pillow beneath it, and drapes the blanket over his body; covering him, “Good-night Vincent…”, she whispers, bending over to kiss his brow, “Sweet Dreams…”, she quietly wishes him, before disappearing into her room to sleep off her light-headedness.

 

 

 

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-Vincent's Memories/Dream-

 

 

 

 

 

Vincent sits in the corner of his windowless basement-cell, both his wrists in shackles chained to the wall. He didn't know how long he had been down there for, he felt hungry and thirsty; even though they were giving him food to eat and water to drink, he could barely think straight it was so bad.

 

“What is wrong with me…?”, he asks himself, as his crimson eyes stared lifelessly at the floor in front of him. His hair had grown since his imprisonment to the point that his left eye was completely hidden behind his bangs.

 

Suddenly, the door to the cell opens causing Vincent's head to snap up and he sees one of the Sephiroth's servants; a woman, walk in with a tray in her hands. He gets to his feet; despite the fact he was chained to the wall he still had a good five feet of chain, preparing himself for the possible attack by the Vampire Lord, like had happened before. He watches the servant as she knelt on the floor to place his meal onto the floor and put his empty dishes from her last visit onto the tray, but he found his eyes focusing onto the vein in her neck as the blood pumped through it, and he found himself fighting the urge to tackle the woman and plunge his teeth into the tender flesh above the blood-vessel. He keeps his back pressed against the wall with a hand held to his head as he blinks his eyes trying to make the pain in his head vanish, but the pain only got worst as his vision began to blur and the edges begun to blacken, until he felt himself collapsing to the floor as his sight faded to black.

 

He woke up sometime later in a state of semi-consciousness, he felt himself covered in a warm liquid but he couldn't identify what it was, he could also hear voices speaking above him, “He's at the limit of his control…”, one voice says.

 

“I'd like to see what he could do… When among a village…”, a second voice replies.

 

Vincent tried to open his eyes, but when he did he found his vision was completely blurred, he tried to move his arms, but they refused to function, `Why can't I move?', he groggily thought, closing his useless eyes again and slips into unconsciousness.

 

When he reawakened and opened his eyes, his vision was no longer clouded and he saw the inside of a hut's roof, he was laying on his back in a futon and from the feeling of the material covering him, he was in a clean kimono and under a thin-blanket, “What the…?”, he whispers, his voice hoarse from lack of use.

 

“You're awake…”, a voice to his left says, causing him to turn his head to look at the speaker, having to wince at the brightness of the sunlight coming through the door before the reed-mat fell back into place behind the woman as she walked over to his side carrying a jar full of water, “How are you feeling?”

 

“Where am I…?”, came the rough whispered question from his mouth.

 

“My village, you were found collapsed outside of it this morning…”, she replies, “You've been asleep for almost half a day”.

 

Vincent goes to open his mouth to say some more, but no sound comes out as his throat began to burn.

 

“You shouldn't try to talk yet, you still need to regain your strength…”, the woman says, bringing a ladle full of water to his lips, “Here, drink some water…”

 

“Thank you…”

 

“I told you not to talk…”, she giggles.

 

`I don't know how I got here, but I think I can rest peacefully until my strength returns and I can pay back Sephiroth for what he has done to Lucrecia and me!', he thinks, beginning to feel sleep creeping onto him.

 

“Just get some sleep, traveler”, the woman advises.

 

He could only nod as he slowly fell asleep again.

 

“Has he fallen asleep?”, a man asks, as he walks in through the door.

 

“Yes, he has father…”

 

“Did you get any information on him?”

 

“No… He's still too weak to speak…”, she shakes her head.

 

“The sword he was found with…We could get a large sum of money for selling it…”, the man says, holding Vincent's mythril katana in his hand.

 

“What do you plan to do, father?”

 

“We kill him in the middle of the night… no witnesses… no questions…”

 

“I understand…”

 

 

 

 

A Few Hours Later…

 

 

 

Vincent opens his eyes again, the throbbing pain in his head had returned as he slowly sat up, finding his katana beside the futon. Picking it up, he slowly gets to his feet using the sword as a crutch to rise and stumbles towards the door, pulling the reed-mat back, he could see the sun setting behind the horizon.

 

“What are you doing out of bed?”, the woman questions, running towards him, “You should be resting still”.

 

“I can't sleep…”, he weakly says, as his vision began to blur again.

 

“What is he doing up?”, the woman's father bellows, approaching with a knife in his hand, he had been in the process of sharpening it.

 

“He's being stubborn… he refusing to return to bed, father”, the woman replies.

 

Suddenly, Vincent wavers as he is hit with a bout of lightheadedness, collapsing to his knees, sweat dripping from his face as his vision begins to slowly blacken. The last thing he sees before his vision turns completely black; is himself tackling the woman's father and a spray of blood.

 

 

 

 

The Next Day…

 

 

 

 

Vincent groggily opens his eyes; blinking against the brightness of the sun overhead, and finds himself laying flat on his back, “What happened…?”, he weakly asks, as he slowly sat up. His eyes widening in horror at the carnage around him, the huts in the village were destroyed; collapsed and burning, the villagers were sprawled all around him; their skin completely white and their faces contorted in terror, a tiny puddle of blood around each of their necks, some even with their throats torn out. He slowly rises to his feet, feeling an unusual wetness and heaviness in his kimono, and upon looking down at his clothes, the once sky-blue kimono was drenched in splatters of blood; the villagers' blood.

 

“No…”, he gasps in terror, backing away and tripping on something behind him, causing him to fall over onto his butt, he looks at the thing he tripped on to find it was the woman who was tending to him with his katana in her hands.

 

“Why…? Why…?”, she mutters incoherently, her glazed over eyes blindingly staring up at the sky.

 

“Who did this to you and your village?”, he asks, kneeling beside her head as he takes his sword from her hands.

 

She simply reaches up to touch the side of his mouth with her clean hand and pulls it back covered in blood, causing Vincent to touch his mouth too and finds blood on his mouth, he could even taste the coppery-taste of it in his mouth, “It was you… you…vampire…”, she trails off as she falls limp on the ground.

 

“No…no…no…I'm not a vampire…”, he whispers in horror, even though in the back of his mind he knew he was the one who slaughtered the villagers and drank their blood, tears beginning to fall from his eyes, mingling with the blood on his kimono.

 

He takes his katana out of it's sheathe, turning the blade at his abdomen; trusting the sword through it, `Please let me die quickly… So I may start to repent for my sins…', he prayed, his blood beginning to flow from his mouth as he remove the blade from his abdomen. Only to feel the wound close in a matter of moments, “No…”, he gasps, cursing under his breath, as each time he tried to commit seppuku; the honorable form of suicide, the wound would continue to completely heal. He brings the blade to his neck, tears still streaming from his eyes as he slowly starts to cut through the precious blood-vessels, his airway, the muscles and tendons, and bones in his desperation to repent; succeeding in slicing his own head off.

 

 

 

 

Sometime Later…

Near Sun-Set…

 

 

 

 

Vincent takes in a painful gasp of air and he starts to cough up dried blood, after a quick session of blinking his lifeless clouded-over blood-red eyes and the life returned to them, he could only sit up and touch his neck, feeling a indent in the flesh where he had cut; the only prove of his attempt to end his life, “Damn it!”, he curses, “Why didn't it work…?”

 

“I told you it would make you live forever, until I died…”, a male's voice says mockingly from behind him, causing Vincent to spin around with his katana drawn recognizing the voice.

 

“You…!”, he spats, pointing the blade at the Vampire Lord.

 

“With added effects…”, Sephiroth sneers, smirking manically.

 

“What the hell did you do to me?”, Vincent demands, not letting his guard down.

 

“The Curse of Eternal-Bloodlust, is a curse that forces the inflicted to live forever until the inflictor is killed, with the condition of that the inflicted is to drink blood every night…”

 

“And if I refuse to drink blood…?”

 

“The hunger will grow until… Well, look around and see the result for yourself…”

 

Vincent averts his eyes for a moment; ashamed that he caused so many deaths of those he sworn to protect for the very creature standing before him, but his guard never dropping, “If all I have to do is kill you to end the curse…”, he says, glaring at the vampire from the corner of his narrowed eyes, “So be it…”, he suddenly charges at the Lord, his katana gripped in his hands, ready to slice through flesh and bone.

 

Sephiroth had to gasp in shock as the man he had cursed suddenly moved faster than he normally would have; the speed a vampire moved, “Impossible…”, he gasps, leaping into the air, only to be quickly followed by Vincent.

 

“Get back here, Sephiroth!”, Vincent shouts, swinging the katana and barely misses slicing across the Vampire's chest, “This is the end!”, he yells, prepared to bring his sword down to chop off the head of his opponent.

 

Suddenly, a kunai flies out of the tree-line and strikes Vincent through the shoulder, causing him to fall out of the air and lands heavily on the ground; not breaking any bones, clutching his shoulder in pain.

 

“It seems I underestimated you…”, Sephiroth taunts, landing on the ground, before he ran towards the forest.

 

“Get back here!”, Vincent demands, beginning to run after him, but only to have a kunai impale him through the shin stopping his chase and leaving him to watch helplessly as his enemy vanished among the trees, “Damn it!”, he curses, punching the ground in frustration and creating a tiny crater, as he stares into the blade of his katana; seeing his reflection, “So… The curse has granted me the vampire's strengths, none of their weakness; except the hunger for blood. A mortal who is now immortal, unable to die till the vampire who cursed me is dead…”, he mutters, the thought of that part of the curse bringing some sort of sick relief to his muddled mind causing him to sneer, “That gives me all the time in the world to hunt down and kill the bastard…”, he scoffs, smirking while his canines lengthened into fangs as the sun sets behind the horizon.

 

 

 

 

-End Memories/Dream-

 

 

 

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