Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Crimson Curse ❯ Chapter 15 ( Chapter 15 )

 

Chapter 15

 

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One Day Later…

(7 Days till Lunar-Eclipse)

Near Nightfall…

 

 

 

 

Vincent's blood-red eyes slowly blinks open, the first few blinks were to clear the blurriness from his sight and the rest were in confusion at his surroundings, “W-where… am I…?”, he mutters to himself for a moment before realizing that he was laying on the couch in Karin's apartment, `Karin must have carried me here after I collapsed…', he thinks, as he sat up slowly so he wouldn't become lightheaded, “But where is she…?”

 

Bang! Bang!

 

“What the…?”, he questions, as he turns towards the sound to see the door swinging in the breeze, banging against the wall as the rain continued to pour down from the heavens outside.

 

He begins moving to get off the couch, only to immediately clutching the left side of his abdomen and pulls his hand away to find it and a patch of the kimono covered in blood, “It still hasn't healed…”, he growls in frustration, slowly climbing off of the sofa and stumbles towards the door to close it, only to stop when he spots the crumpled-form of a person laying on the floor, “It's Cloud…”, he mutters, recognizing his fellow vampire-hunter's friend.

 

“Uh…”, Cloud groans, as he shifts his body before he slightly lifts his head up and his eyes flutter open, “W-what happened to… me…?”, he sputters, holding his head with his left-hand causing the puncture-marks on his left-arm to be exposed from underneath his sleeve.

 

`He was bitten!', Vincent thinks, moving as fast as he could to grab Cloud by the collar of his shirt and pins him against the wall, “Where is she?!”, he demands.

 

“W-what…?”, he fearfully gasps, finding his blue-eyes staring into a pair of un-natural blood-red ones.

 

“Where is she? Where's Karin?”, Vincent orders, as his canines lengthen into fangs as night fell.

 

Cloud's eyes widen and become electrified with fear, “V-vampire…!”, he shakily says, “P-please… don't make me your minion again… I don't want to go through what you put me through… Not again… Please…”, he pleas.

 

“Again…?”, the cursed immortal repeats in shock, releasing his hold on the young male, “You said vampire, mind-slaves don't utter the word”, he states, walking away into Karin's kitchen and spots a quick-note saying: `A storage of blood for you is in the fridge in a Tupperware-container' taped to the fridge-door, opens the door and pops open the container to grab a bag of blood from it, “Karin must have found a way to free his mind…”, he whispers to himself, as he opens the bag and takes a swig of blood.

 

“So… you're not going to kill me or turn me into your slave… Mr. vampire…?”, Cloud hesitantly asks, inching towards Vincent as he satisfied his thirst.

 

“Please don't call me that…”, Vincent says, “I'm not a vampire… even though I suffer from cravings like them…”, he painfully explains, “I rest assure you, I am human…”

 

“How can I trust what you say? Karin has been kidnapped by the one who had enslaved my mind…”

 

“Are you telling me that Sephiroth has Karin?!”, he shouts, nearly cornering the poor man again.

 

“He used me to lure her into a false-sense of security, but she noticed the differences and took the risks to try and free me…”

 

“But Sephiroth was there and captured her…”

 

“He wasn't alone in taking control of me and many others, and in kidnapping Karin…”, he nods, “He had help from a human willing to `lend' his services…”

 

“A human…?”

 

“A member of the staff at the hospital, Dr. Hojo… He organized my mental-imprisonment to get to Karin…”

 

“I knew I got a bad-feeling from that man…”, Vincent spat, “What's this…?”, he questions, noticing the map on the table and walks to it.

 

“It appears that Karin was charting something…”, Cloud comments.

 

“It's my map over-lapped with a map of Tokyo… But what's this building that is circled?”, he asks, `That's right where Sephiroth's castle once stood…', he thinks, recalling the horrible acts that occurred there.

 

“A castle stood there 300 years ago, but it was torn down during War World II after the bombings and what was built in it's place was Tokyo Hospital, where I was hospitalized. He would have taken her there to their hideout in the basement…”, he replies, “Hey! Where are you going?”, he questions, after he notices Vincent pulling on his jeans.

 

“Cloud, you stay here and call Tifa to stay with you. I'm going to bring Karin back”, Vincent states, `I can't lose her… Not like I lost Lucrecia…', he mentally vows, as he tugs on a button-up shirt, weakly buttoning a few buttons and picks up his katana from where Karin had placed it, slipping on his boots and walks out the still open door, closing it behind himself.

 

 

 

 

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-Tokyo Hospital-

-Deep in the Hidden Basement-

 

 

 

 

Karin sits in a solitary-room with her knees pressed up against her chest with a shackle latched around her ankle chaining her to the wall; imprisoning her, while her captor stood a safe distance away from her and her power.

 

“Oh, don't have such a sad look on your face, my dear”, he says, “I hate seeing your beautiful features marred by such an ugly expression…”

 

“When I'm free; and I will get free, I will take great pleasure in ending your tyranny…”, she threatens from behind clenched teeth.

 

“Such ugly words, but your attitude won't be the same once the night of the Blood-moon comes”

 

“My Lord!”, one of his underlings greets kneeling before his master.

 

“What is it? Can't you see you're interrupting my getting acquainted with my guest”, he snaps.

 

“We have reports that the cursed-one is coming this way”, the minion replies.

 

`Vincent's coming here to save me…!', Karin joyfully exclaims in her mind.

 

“Perfect, he's coming to me just as I had planned…”, he smiles, “I must meet with my other guest…”, he purrs, turning towards the door and starts walking from the room, “Now don't go getting yourself lost, my dear…”, he mocks, even though she couldn't leave the room.

 

“You Asshole!”, she shouts, flipping him the middle-finger as he left, `Vincent…', she thinks, longingly stares down at Cerberus-keychain he had given her with a copy of his apartment key, `Just be careful, your injuries probably haven't completely healed yet…', she silently prays.

 

 

 

 

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-Outside the Hospital-

 

 

 

 

“I have to… get there...before he does to her…what he did to Lucrecia…”, Vincent pants, as he slowly makes his way towards the building Karin was imprisoned in leaning against the sides of the buildings to maintain his balance, clutching his wound with his right-hand and tightly held his sheathed katana in the other.

 

He lifts his head up to see five teenagers turned into vampires, `Just great…', he mentally groans, shakily drawing his sword.

 

“Look, he intends to fight despite his weaken condition”, one laughs.

 

“He must really love the Banpaia Ten-Ki, to come here looking like he's ready to pass out”, another one mocks.

 

“What would a soulless creature like you know about emotions?!”, he shouts, gripping his katana till his knuckles turned white.

 

“Lord Sephiroth wants him, so let's just grab him!”, a female vampire suggests.

 

“You heard the lady, let's get him?”, a fourth vampire commands, charging at Vincent followed by the fifth vampire.

 

Anticipating where the two vampires were going to attack from, he swings his sword slashing one in half and the other one tries to attack him from behind, but Vincent counter-attacks by quickly thrusting his arm backwards right through the vampire's chest, his still beating heart clutched in Vincent's hand before he crushes the life-sustaining organ, killing the foe.

 

Vincent stands up; being able to stand under his own power from the adrenaline pumping through his veins, the blood of the two vampires he killed spattered all over his face and white shirt and becoming diluted by the fallen-rain, and with his disheveled hair and lightening violently flashing in the skies overhead reflecting off his blood-coated katana, he looked like a demon who had raised from the deepest pit of Hell.

 

“What is wrong with you? Go get him!”, the female vampires shouts.

 

“N-no way I'm going to attack him…!”, another vampire stutters, literally pissing his pants.

 

“Yeah… He kill one of our friends by impaling his chest and crushing his heart in his hand! And only his hand!”, the other male fearfully yells.

 

“That is because of the curse on his body, though it forces him to have our thirst for blood, it unfortunately grants him our strengths, speed, and heightened-senses as well”, a calm and collected voice of a male states.

 

“Sephiroth!”, Vincent hisses from behind clenched teeth, gripping his weapon tighter in his hand, as he watches his loathed enemy approaching the battle-ground wearing a completely black-leather out-fit; his jacket, pants, and boots were made of the material.

 

“My, you're looking a little haggard since the last time we encountered each-other, you'd might even say I've missed playing with you”, the Vampire-Lord smirks.

 

“You fucking bastard!”, the eternally-cursed man shouts, “You think I'm your plaything!”, he continues, charging towards his tormentor with his sword held high over his head prepared to slice the vampire in half.

 

A moment later, Vincent stands in front of Sephiroth with both arms in the air prepared to swing the sword down in a final death-blow, but sweat drips down his chin as he strains trying to get his arms to move and kill his hated-foe.

 

`W-why won't my arms move…?', he mentally asks himself, still struggling to get his arms to work.

 

Sephiroth takes this chance to calmly reach out and wrap his fingers around Vincent's throat, applying pressure causing the stunned man to gasp out in surprise as his airway is partially squeezed shut and his arms drop uselessly to his sides.

 

“You're probably wondering why you can't swing your sword to kill me when you could 300 years ago, right?”, Sephiroth taunts, as he kept a tight grip on his prey, “Well you see, 300 years ago you were at full-strength and wasn't affected by the other side-effect of the Curse of Eternal Blood-Lust. And that side-effect is the curse prevents you from killing or harming me when in a weakened-state, which you currently are from the poison I had the siblings inject into your body”

 

`Damn it! So that was his plan!', Vincent inwardly curses, as the vampire-Lord lifts his feet effortlessly off the ground and slightly lifts his shirt to expose the injury on his abdomen, admiring his henchmen's handiwork before licking the blood from the still bleeding wound, causing him to sharply inhale in pain.

 

“Oh how I have missed this taste…”, the vampire shivers in pleasure, “But I prefer to drink from a wound I myself inflicted…”, he adds, baring his fangs and sinks them into the base of his neck, viciously sucking out Vincent's blood so quickly that he instantly grew light-headed and his vision slowly starts to blur, eventually becoming consumed by the darkness of unconsciousness.

 

“What do you want to do with him now, Master?”, one of the three remaining vampires questions.

 

Sephiroth glances down at the unconscious man in his grip before tossing him towards his minions, “Take him to the Banpaia Ten-Ki's cell, I want her hopes of being rescued to be crushed”, he orders.

 

“Of course, M'Lord”, the female vampires bows, before grabbing one of Vincent's arms, “Hey you last bums, help me!”, she demands, yelling at the other two vampires.

 

“Oh, right!”, they stammer, before grabbing his legs and other arm.

 

 

 

 

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“Here you go Banpaia Ten-Ki, a room-mate for you”, one of the three vampire minions says, throwing Vincent into the room face-down onto the floor, before closing the door and locks it again.

 

“Vincent!”, Karin exclaims, standing up and tries to hurry to his side, but the length of the chain prevented her from reaching him, so she lays down on her stomach to extend her reach just barely able to grab him by the hand and tries to pull him closer towards her.

 

The weight of his water-logged body being too heavy for her to move, so she releases his hand long enough to remove her jacket and lay it on the floor, then lies on top of it and takes hold of Vincent's hand again, looking at him as he shakily breaths and his blood continued to flow from the bite-wound Sephiroth inflicted.

 

“Vincent…”, she softly whispers to him, stretching so she could brush a stray hair from his face and lightly runs her fingers over his blue-tinted lips, `Sephiroth must have nearly drained him dry…', she thinks, “Who knows how long it will be before he recovers now…”

 

 

 

 

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