Mission complete

Rukia landed on the wet concrete, her boots screeching in protest. She was panting, having lost her breath from throwing herself at the enemy only to be swatted away by it. She wanted to let her arms rest just for a bit, so she tried to let her weapon rest the ground. But she let it go a too fast and the scythe bit the concrete harshly right next to her boot .She shook her head, her wet bun getting looser.

In this kind of rain, one should have been hiding away in their home. It was a downpour as few could claim to have seen: huge drops of rain splattered on every surface, the world not resisting to their insistence. Their dying roars and their power would have left her sore and deaf. But she was by no means normal…

As she was trying to catch her breath, a blur passed by her in a hurry. The form crashed in the chocolate advertising panel behind her, ripping through it and collapsing on the floor.

She cursed as her break was over, and lifted her heavy weapon. With her muscles protesting, she threw herself at the thing that was eyeing her evilly. She disgustedly remembered that this was once human, which would bring some similarity between them. That made her angry to have something in common with such trash. This is what would happen to people that would not die peacefully… they became ones without souls.

It was a direct request from Ren, to top it all. Something smelled fishy to her, but she couldn’t tell that to poor Chess. The cat boy came to tell her of the comma- request, acting as a sole for the good-looking Mr. Arrogance Incarnate. She could understand Sasha’s affection towards the cat boy. He was sweet, respectful, loveable, not to mention he gave you the feeling that he needed to be protected. Though he could protect himself as well as injure others… But honestly, who could say no to that pouting face and those puppy eyes?

…even knowing that Ren was a slave-driver.

The monster moved away to avoid her horizontal slash. The scythe’s blade sank in the concrete instead, leaving a horrible dent as she jumped away. She narrowed her eyes and ran towards it, her weapon drawn back, ready to slash at a moment’s notice. She saw the chance- they had tired it out enough for it to be slow and weary. She swung the scythe around but it saw through it and moved away. It thought it managed to avoid being slashed, but it thought wrong.

She appeared behind him and lodged her weapon in its neck. It roared in surprise and turned around at the speed of light, its arm coming around to knock her down. Surprised by the sudden action, she tried to jump away but her weapon refused to move. Having wasted precious time trying to remove her weapon, the monster hit her and threw her into a tree far behind the battle scene.

With a groan she climbed out of the hole in the tree. She cursed, feeling more broken than ever. How on Earth she could even move she pondered, noting a few of her bones bent awkwardly. The vampire looked up at her enemy to see her second chance: it had twisted around trying to get her trusty weapon out of the back of its neck.

Cautiously and soundlessly she pulled out the two kamas she brought along just in case. The cold water on her back served as sweat as she unsheathed them. One moment of distraction was all that took to cause the blades to sing against their covers and attract the monster’s attention.

It yelled in outrage and ran towards her. She knew she was too wasted to move and avoid the crash of its bulk, so she crossed the kamas in an attempt to kill the beast as it would throw itself on her.

But it stopped… it groaned and turned around to face its second enemy.  She saw shot golden hair and grinned- trust good old Leo to come help when needed. She threw her kamas away and jumped on the beast. With the last of her powers she pulled out her scythe, the force making her fall and tumble, the weapon skidding along with her.

Goo spilled out of its wound. It yelled with outrage and knocked Leo away, turning to deal with the other annoyance. She picked herself up, leaning on the scythe, and glared at it.

 Frown set in place, she threw a roundhouse scythe slash at the monster, cutting it in half. With a final roar of pain it finished its short life. Not taking the risk of it reviving, she retrieved her kamas and hacked away at it.

When she finished, she felt totally exhausted and collapsed on her butt. She had surpassed her limits like she usually did in desperate times, but she wasn’t sure if the price would be worth it. She’d probably have Sasha nurse her back to health for a whole week, which was a first in a hundred years. Nurse Sasha… Heh, considering how many people got injured daily, it was no wonder she turned into a nurse.

She continued pant and groan at her aching muscles. Hearing footsteps above the rain she turned her head slowly to see Leo limping over to her place. The rain had soaked him to the bone like it had to her, his short wet hair sticking to the cuts on his face, half healed and half opened.

He seemed just as tired as she was, but she instinctively knew he had it worse off.  After all most of her wounds were half-healed, sore and pink but healed. His had crust over them and most were not even closed.

“Hi Leo.” She said, making an attempt at humor. It worked as he shyly smiled and waved at her, stopping a few steps away from her. “Are you okay?”

“I’ve seen better days, obviously.” He sighed and looked over to what was left of the monster. “We’re supposed to burn these but…”

“But what?” She asked, making him blush shyly.

“But it’s been raining so hard that it’s impossible to do so.” He continued his previous though, trying to walk normally. Frowning, he popped one of his shoulders in place and then bent down to move his broken ankle in the right position. Happy with the results he pulled out of his cloak a black cloth. Unfolding it he covered the things that once made the monster, letting the cloth rest a few seconds before he pulled it up.

The pieces had disappeared. She looked at her partner to see him tying the cloth and hiding it somewhere in his cloak. She laughed at his magic antics and got herself up.

“Ooooh!” She said as she stretched.” I’d kill for a cup of warm blood right now!” she walked around, retrieving her weapons. Having gathered them, she silently observed that the rain had finally stopped.

“Well, Leo, if that was all…Bye~!” She turned to leave, waving at him strangely. The boy sputtered and blushed as he thought that he couldn’t let her go home alone.

“Rukia-chan, wait!” He called after her, running to catch her. She stopped and threw him a curious glance over her shoulder.

“You shouldn’t wander around wounded like this… Please let me walk you home.” He said between pants, his face red. Too tired to turn the pros and cons in her mind, she just answered on a whim.

“Oh… Sure. You’re right.” She offered him a fanged tired smile and started walking again. Seeing her smile the blonde blushed again. ‘He’s so cute, blushing like that!’ she thought, giggling to herself.

“Uh…Rukia-chan, is something wrong?” he asked. She just smiled mysteriously and waved him away.

Along the way Leo sneezed a few good times, making her offer her coat to him. He blushed and stuttered, saying that it should be the other way around. The small argument ended in her laughing and him blushing, trying to hide himself.

When they reached Rukia and Sashta’s shared apartment, Leo said good night and turned to leave. Feeling like this was wrong, Rukia called him back.

“Leo, you should stay over.” She said as seriously as she could. He blushed and muttered something among the lines that it wouldn’t be nice of him.

“Nonsense! You’re wounded worse than me!” she cried.

“Touché. Still...I don’t want to disturb Sasha.” He stammered, pulling out his ace.

“Oh come on!” she said, exasperated. She face palmed and counted to ten, then said as calmly as she could. ”Sashta’s staying over at Ren’s. You’re not disturbing anyone. And if you refuse to come in, I’ll have to come over to you and ‘motivate’ you.” She continued, her voice low and annoyed.

He gulped and nodded his head fervently. Huffing to herself, she unlocked the door and stepped in, getting her muddy boots off. He followed her in and stopped to look around the apartment without stepping over the threshold.

The apartment didn’t seem to have anything special. In fact, you could confuse it for the other apartments…if it wouldn’t be for Sashta’s stupid porcelains strewed all over the place, or Rukia’s pairs of boots near the entrance, or the cups left on the coffee table.

He smiled at the homely feeling and took a deep breath, liking the dull, yet lively apartment at first. When he opened his eyes, Rukia was looking at him strangely. He smiled sheepishly and blushed- it was something he found himself to do only around the older vampire.

“Err…now that you’re out of your daydreaming, take off your shoes, and go watch TV or something. I’m gonna have a real quick bath.” She said and disappeared down the hall and into some room.

Finding himself alone, he took off his shoes and after a moment of hesitance, passed the threshold. He felt as if he shouldn’t be here, in this place that supposedly belonged to Sashta and Rukia only… Pushing the feeling to the back of his mind he hanged his cape in the coat hanger. He looked around once more and stepped around cautiously, sitting on a deep blue couch.

He heard what he presumed was the bathroom door close. He reached for the remote and opened the TV on some news station. Seeing as there was no murder or something of the likes, he smiled and ruffled his hair. ‘Thank God that was the only Soulless…’ He thought.

In the half of hour that Rukia was washing herself, he dozed off in front of the TV. When Rukia came out of the bathroom she slammed the door, jolting poor Leo out of his sleep. As he blinked away the sleep and yawned and stretched, she went into the kitchen.

“Hey, Leo,” She said, her voice overpowering the sounds in the kitchen, “would ya like a cup of blood?”

“Actually I would, Rukia-chan. I haven’t eaten in a week!” He replied, switching the TV channel.

She came out of the kitchen, carrying two cups of blood. She handed him one which he gulped down almost instantly.

“Woah there tiger! Careful not to choke…” She laughed, sitting down and drinking from her own cup. ”So… that’s how he got you to do this, huh?”

“Partially, yes…that little brother of mine hid away all my blood.” He growled and placed the cup on the coffee table, away from the other two.

After a few minutes of somewhat awkward silence for Leo and tired silence for Rukia, she asked for the remote. He passed it to her and watched her zip though the channels.

“There’s this horror movie Sashta begged me ta record, you see…Well, wanna watch it?” She grinned, finding her channel.

“Sure. I've mostly seen everything bad in this world, after all…” He mumbled the last part, directing his attention to the film.

And so commenced two hours and half of the most stupidly produced horror movie ever. Being tired and bored, Leo fell asleep in the first half an hour, leaving Rukia to face the annoyance alone. I mean, who wouldn’t fall asleep seeing a horror movie about damned sirens?

The movie ended and the credits rolled on the small screen. She yawned and blinked the tears away, looking at Leo afterwards. He fell asleep while leaning his head in his right fist, placed on the couch’s blue armrest…

The vampire then glanced at the cup of blood in front of her. Cold blood was no good, yet she drank it all in one big heroic gulp. Finished with that, she set about to hunt for a blanket for the young man and finding it in the cupboards of the coat hanger.  She walked up to him and carefully wrapped him in the baby blue blanket.

Making sure he was comfortable, she couldn’t help but stop and watch his face. In a human’s opinion, he wan handsome, but compared to the other vampires she had seen, he was plain. She was also older than him with about six hundred years, so her experience and strength was far better than his.

Yet, somehow… she started observing him and everything about him. His clothes, his blushes, his stuttering… She could tell anyone what he liked and what he hated even in her sleep, and she knew his idolizing love towards his smaller brother.

She had felt lonely for the past one hundred years, when all of the vampires seemed to have finally disappeared. One hundred years ago, she wouldn’t even spare the boy a glance, but now…now it was different.

No longer did she want one of those stiff, lifeless, something’s-stuck-up-my-ass vampires. No longer did strength or beauty interest her. For God’s sake, she didn’t need a prince or a knight! She just needed someone she could be sure would hold her in her darkest nightmares…

Leo proved to be heroic, loyal, honest, adorable, considerate of others, loveable and simply sane in a world of madmen. No one out of their group was quite like him- Chess had only one sane personality and Sasha was slowly becoming insane herself.

Not to mention, with the good days rolling by so slowly, who knew when evil would strike and ruin thousands of lives?

With those thoughts swimming through her mind, her traitorous eyes zeroed in his lips. She knew she might love him, and she knew he definitely liked her, but was too shy to tell her.

She leaned in, heart beating wildly in her ribcage. Her dry, small lips came in an innocent contact with his soft, full ones.

She felt dizzy at the lack of air and heard rustling noises. Opening her eyes, she stared into Leo’s golden brown ones. She blushed, realizing what she did and that he was awake all along.

He didn’t wait and kissed her back, just as innocently. Rukia never thought she would get breathless as a vampire, but he proved her wrong.

“You’ve nowhere to run now, little red riding hood.”  He said, and laughter bubbled from her throat. He smiled and touched her forehead with his, laughing along with her. Finally they had found each other…

 

 

Omake~:  A bright night

Sashta sighed as she patted Chess’ soft hair. Said cat boy purred under her touch, titling his head for more. Soon the soft mumbling of stories and the warm bed whisked him away into the land of dreams.

The brunette liked this Chess. He was the perfect embodiment of the cute little brother she never had. For now, it was one of the main reasons she still kept going.

She left the main guest room- dubbed the useless student’s room by Ren- and decided to go bug her Shishou about her roommate’s relationship.

Stepping down the carpeted stairs, she listened to murmurs coming from her Shishou’s office. Walking the last steps, she heard the door slam and swore that if Chess had woken up, she’d kill the one that caused the noise, even if she knew she could never actually carry out her oath.

She saw Leo, his face set in an annoyed scowl, rushing towards the entrance. She couldn’t help but call him out.

“Leo! Hi!” She said, waving at him. He smiled uncertainly, all traces of annoyance gone from his face.

“Hi, Sashta-chan.” He replied awkwardly, waving back at her.

“How was the mission?”

“Err…it could’ve gone better.”

“Shishou bitched about how he could’ve done it better.”

“Exactly.”

“How’s Rucchi going?”

Now, she knew that she’d get him flustered, but the outcome completely amazed her. He blushed and created a few new shades of red, looking at his socks. This made the girl giggle, and him blush some more.

“Well, then. I’m running away from home for another couple days, so enjoy your time.” She laughed, and he fled in embarrassment. She was close to rolling around on the floor when the office door opened. She looked and saw her Shishou looking back at her as if he had seen Gray in one of her yaoi fangirling moments.

“…shishou, don’t you think they fit together?” She asked, smiling gently.

“Sure.” The raven snorted, going back in his office. “As long as you keep your part of the deal.” She smiled on and went to make some late night snack for her hard-working Shishou, realizing that today was a nice, full moon.