AUTHOR’S NOTE: Okay. Uhm. I expected this story to go a little differently. I kind of hoped to make a series out of it, or at least several parts, and that might happen but—NO SPOILERS OKA
This is an AU. Inner Moka is out all the time (yes, she still has her rosary, it just increases her power when removed is all). Outer Moka does not exist. Tsukune isn’t in it. Well, I guess I mention him twice but that’s it.
This is Mizore x Moka again, and there is one lemon in it, but it’s not what you might expect for this story. ;A; I’m sorry about this, by the way. I’m playing with a new style of writing, so I’m sorry if it sucks. xP Oh—and there is some vampire mythology here, I’ve just taken some of what I’ve heard from other places and combined it all, so it’s not exactly canon. I’m sorry if they seem OOC.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Rosario+Vampire or any of the characters located herein. I do not profit in any way from the making and sharing of this story. It is for entertainment purposes only. Please don’t sue me, I have no money. XD
The day is unusually warm. The leaves whisper softly in the wind, the birds singing greetings to all the monsters that passed. The sky is a clear, bright blue devoid of any clouds.
Mizore Shirayuki hates it. She knows that this is because she’s a yuki-Onna, but to her it feels as if it is something more than that. Perhaps it’s because it’s her first day at the famed monster school, the first of its kind. She remembers how insistent her mother was in convincing her to attend and shudders once, tugging restlessly on her sleeves. Her mother has excellent aim with ice shards.
She is beginning to convince herself that, warmth aside, the day isn’t really that bad when she hears something behind her and she turns, expecting to see people, but sees nothing, just a leaf falling back into place as a bat takes flight and disappears. She sighs once and turns back to continue her journey.
The noise gets louder. Mizore is not one to shy away from potential danger and so she stops and faces the direction the sound seems to be coming from, transforming smoothly into her true form. Her long purple hair freezes, her hands covered by ice, giving her a sort of wintry claw extending from each arm. The ice sparkles prettily in the sunlight and she worries for a second that they may melt before the sound reaches its peak and with a rush a bicycle bursts out of the forest and collides with Mizore. A scream finds its way out of her chest as she tumbles backwards, rolling several times before finally coming to a halt on her back, glassy eyes staring at the sky.
The girl riding the bike lay several feet away from her, just out of Mizore’s peripheral vision. She can smell her, though, vanilla with a hint of something else, something she can’t put her finger on. Mizore struggles to sit up and is rewarded with a sight of the girl sitting beside her, eyes narrowed angrily. Mizore’s first thought it that this girl is gorgeous, that her eyes—red as blood—were perhaps the most beautiful she had ever seen. Long white hair trails down her back, not dirtied at all from her awkward collision with the earth. The second thing Mizore notices?
Her aura. It is powerful, perhaps even more so than the Priestess at her home village. She cannot tell what kind of monster this girl is and decides she doesn’t even want to know, she wants to get the hell out of there before she decides to kill her for being in the way, despite the fact that it wasn’t Mizore’s fault at all.
The enigmatic girl is the first to speak and Mizore is frozen solid by her voice, sultry and seductive, rolling off her tongue like glistening honey. “You should have known to move out of the way,” she says, and her eyes narrow to cat-like slits. Mizore keeps her face blank and tries to hide the way her heart thuds in her chest, annoyingly painful.
“I didn’t know you were coming from that direction, you could have shouted a warning to move.” Mizore’s words are unintentionally harsh, cold and clipped and exactly the tone a Snow Woman should have. She tries very hard to keep her emotions out of her voice, which is almost as monotonous as the other girl’s. Mizore allows herself to inspect her further and sees a rosary hanging off her chest. Is this meant to keep her monster power inside? She has heard of things like that but has never encountered a creature powerful enough to require one. Now her emotions show on her face and she begins, oddly enough, to sweat underneath her light clothing. Fear shows in her eyes as she looks at the girl, who laughs at her expression and stands. Mizore expects a kick or a throw of power that requires no physical movement but is instead given a hand to take, which she accepts, shaking despite herself. The girl pulls Mizore to her feet as if she weighs nothing.
“I am Moka Akashiya, daughter of Issa Shuzen and S-Class vampire.” Her tone is cold and Mizore hesitates only a moment before responding.
“I’m Mizore Shirayuki. I’m a yuki-Onna.” She fails in her attempt to hide her surprise and fear when she learns that Moka is a vampire. They are the most powerful of monsters, something no one wants to piss off, ever, lest they have a death wish. Mizore prays that she hasn’t pissed this particular vampire off and shuffles her feet nervously. The rosary makes sense now.
If she didn’t wear it, Moka’s powerful energy would engulf everything and everyone, letting all who could sense it know that she is a vampire. There would be foolish monsters who would attempt to challenge her, knowing that to beat a vampire is to gain a status so high that no one would ever challenge said beast again. It is a status no one has yet achieved.
“A yuki-Onna? Interesting. I have heard of your people. You are one of the stronger monsters, though—“ here Moka smirks, regarding Mizore with a look she can’t decode “—you are still not strong enough to beat me in a fight.” Mizore notices, for the first time, the bags under Moka’s eyes, the abnormal thinness of her body.
Disregarding any fear for her safety, she blurts out, “Have you fed recently? You look ill.” The vampire’s eyes widen in surprise that a yuki-Onna, of all things, would see through her façade and recognize her starvation.
Even so, she tilts her chin up regally and fixes Mizore with eyes that are clear of self-pity. “No. I have not fed recently. Do not tell me, Snow Woman, that you have already come to worry about my health?” The question is asked in mocking tones. Mizore stands her ground, hands fisting at her sides.
“I caused you to fall off your bike, but you haven’t attempted to punish me yet. That means that I owe you something in return, right?” Mizore tilts her head to the side and sweeps her hair over her shoulder, exposing a snow-white and creamy neck. “Take my blood,” she says simply. She knows that she won’t taste as good as a human, but she will taste sweet. Her blood will almost feel cold to the vampire, but it will be a good kind of cold. Mizore has been filled with this ice her entire life.
She begins, though, to feel a little bit of that ice melt inside as Moka takes a confident step forward and locks eyes with Mizore, her red eyes narrowed for reasons other than anger. She lets a finger trace down her neck, scratching Mizore lightly with a sharp fingernail. Mizore lets out a silent, shuddering gasp and Moka pulls her closer, enveloping the smaller girl in her arms as she lowers her head and sinks her teeth into the soft skin of Mizore’s neck.
The sting lasts only a moment, and Mizore discovers that the legends are wrong, that the victims of vampire attacks are misguided and dumb, because what she feels is far from pain or fear. She recalls a line she read once in a book about vampires, a book that was forbidden to her and one she read anyway.
Anyone who willingly gives themselves to a vampire receives nothing but pleasure in return, as the vampire need not use any mind control or seduction to gain what he desires. This is what it means for a vampire to feed.
She couldn’t quite remember all of it but the gist of it was that a person who let a vampire drink their blood felt pleasure, not pain. Mizore was finding that this was very true as the gorgeous vampire greedily drank her lifeblood.
It was appalling for a monster to give herself to another monster like this, to let herself be taken as dinner and nothing else. Monster morals were incredibly loose, yes, but to allow oneself to be dinner? It was something only the desperate did, in return for something they needed. It was the ultimate sin, the worst possible act one could commit.
In that moment, though, Mizore didn’t give a shit, to put it bluntly. Moka’s lips were soft on her neck, her hands tightly clutching the fabric that had bunched up around Mizore’s waist, her legs flush up against Mizore’s. They both wore short skirts, and Mizore could feel the soft, flawless skin of the vampire’s against her. She let her eyes flutter shut, let a soft moan escape her lips—to hell with it, might as well be as wanton as possible—and reaches up to twine an arm delicately around Moka’s neck, pulling her head down, wanting to feel more. More of Moka. More of this.
Nothing could prepare her for what happened next, though. Moka pulls back from Mizore and straightens, flicking her pink tongue out to lick up the blood that stained her lips. She smirks, perhaps knowing exactly what Mizore wants. She leans forward and catches Mizore’s lips in her mouth.
Mizore is shaken. Shocked. She trembles in Moka’s arms and wills herself to regain composure. Kissing is not a new act to her, but the way Moka’s mouth moves against her convinces her otherwise. All this time, had she been doing it wrong? No one had ever made her feel the sensations the seductive vampire elicited.
Mizore is stricken with the sudden realization that what she was doing was wrong, that the only thing almost as bad as letting someone feed from you is letting said person take you in a different way, and though she feels a flutter in her stomach at the thought of Moka taking her—of Moka even wanting to take her—she pulls away, looking at Moka incredulously. “W-what was that for?” she asks, but she let it happen and they both know it. Mizore glances away, remembers for the first time that she is going to be late for school if she doesn’t hurry. She moves as if to run away but a strong hand grips her wrist.
“Mizore.” That one, single word is enough to halt Mizore in her tracks, to make her eyes widen and her breath hitch. Actually, anything spoken in that sultry voice is enough to make her react like that. Hell, telling Mizore her grocery list would get a similar reaction.
Mizore shakes her head, annoyed at those thoughts, and doesn’t say a word, waiting for Moka to say what she wants and let go of her so she can run and pretend this disgrace never happened. Her mother’s teaching is still fresh in her mind, and Mizore needs to stop, needs to put her walls back up, needs to show Moka that she isn’t weak, that she can’t be taken so easily, that allowing her to drink her blood like that was just a slip-up, just momentary insanity. Mizore can’t, though, and so she remains still, waiting for Moka. Always waiting for Moka.
“Don’t go. Let’s walk together. You don’t know what dangers are out there, it’s not safe to be by yourself.” Mizore tugs out of Moka’s grip and whirls around, her eyes suddenly filled with tears.
“No! I’m—I’m strong, I don’t need a vampire to protect me! Why would anyone attack me, anyway? I’m nothing. I’m nothing special, nothing to be desired…no one would want to take me. You only drank my blood because I offered, because a willing victim—“ the word ‘victim’ is thrown out at Moka, lashed out like a whip, intended to cut her and wound her, but her red eyes show no sign of pain or remorse “—is better than an unconscious one, and we both know that! I just met you, stop pretending we’re friends or that I mean something to you, because I don’t.” Here she stops and begins to turn away but something makes her hesitate, makes her say three final words before running off, alone, into the forest. “I’m just dinner.”
Mizore doesn’t see Moka again that day. She thinks she catches a glimpse of white hair in the crowd but there are too many boys around, sweaty creatures all vying for a glimpse at the hottest girl in school. She looked up and sighed. “Welcome to Yokai Academy
Orientation is soon over, but Mizore lingers in the room as the other new students file out, laughing. She frowns at a large group of girls standing just outside the open double doors. The breeze plays at their skirts, the boys nearly fall over their feet trying to get a glimpse of what may lie beneath, and Mizore heaves a disgusted sigh.
Despite being new, she already knows the name of the most popular girl in school (and from what else she heard, the most bitchy as well). Kurumu Kurono. Medium-height, blue hair pulled back in what may or may not be a short ponytail, a yellow sweater vest to reign in the huge tits that escaped the torment of a bra, and the skirt that every single female wore. On her, though, it seemed exceptionally short, as if she had gotten a few sizes too small. Mizore wouldn’t put it past her.
She stood with other girls, beautiful but not beautiful enough to outshine her. After just a few moments of watching her, Mizore already knew the girl was a succubus. One particular boy—Tsukune Aono, evidently—couldn’t escape her seductions, no matter how much he obviously wanted to. His eyes kept gluing themselves to an upperclassman who Mizore only knew by first name. Ginei. She sighs again and pushes off the wall, nearly bumping into a large and particularly sweaty boy.
“Hey, slut, watch where you’re going!”
“Why don’t you lose some weight and stop getting in the way, then?” Mizore blurts, not being one to just ignore some pig calling her a slut. His face flushes.
“What did you just call me?” He asks, voice low as he approaches her. Mizore smiles dully as she thinks that he isn’t approaching so much as waddling, and it was that smile that did her in. “That’s it, I ain’t gonna let a freshman whore like you treat me like that!” He grows to nearly five times his size, swells to a ton and his skin turns pink. His face sports only a single eye and a bubble of laughter escapes Mizore before she can stop it. Incredibly, he flushes even more and lifts a foot in an attempt to squash her. She doesn’t move, just freezes a dome of sharp ice around her, which he foolishly steps on. Mizore grins as he shrieks and clutches his foot, hopping to keep his balance. Two of his friends join him, transforming to similar sizes. She doesn’t know what monsters they are and, quite frankly, doesn’t care.
The first inkling of fear finally trickles into her stomach as more boys join them. She may be more powerful than any A-Class monsters, but still, the sheer number of monsters against her would be intimidating to the most powerful of monsters.
Except, apparently, to Moka Akashiya, who suddenly appears in front of Mizore. She stands tall and proud, hands on her hips. Mizore doesn’t need to see her to know she’s smirking.
“Who the hell are you?” screeches the original monster who tried to kill Mizore. “Get out of the way, you’re not involved in this!”
“Oh, I’m not, am I?” Moka lifts a hand almost lazily and with a single click! she removes her rosary, tossing it aside. There is no transformation, no physical proof that she had transformed at all, but there is a burst of monster energy that surprises everyone.
“Hey…who the hell are you?” he asks, tone now stained with fear. He is reminded of all the monster friends he has backing him up and, determined, shifts into a fighting stance. “Bring it on, slut!”
“Mizore is mine.” The words are clipped and brief. The monsters pause. “To mess with her is to mess with me. So—“ she glances up and skewers the monsters with a glare “—know your place.” Moka delivers a kick to the closest monster and sends him flying off. The other monsters hesitate only a moment before rushing her all at once. Moka places her hands on her hips and waits for them.
Needless to say, Moka emerges the victor and Mizore her prize.
“Why did you say I was yours?” Mizore asks afterwards, as they walk to the dorms together. Night has finally fallen and a chill has taken to the air. Mizore sighs inaudibly in relief; the heat had been nearly unbearable.
“Because you are,” Moka says simply. “I took your blood. It was delicious. I want more.” She stops walking as they reach the building and lifts Mizore’s chin with a finger. She leans forward and speaks, her cool breath washing deliciously over Mizore. “It is time you accept it. You are mine.” Mizore cannot hide the shiver that chases down her spine at that, and Moka smirks, obviously recognizing it in Mizore’s eyes. She presses her lips against Mizore’s, tongue ghosting over her lower lip, her hand slinking down to cup Mizore’s neck softly, gently, almost reverently. Mizore trembles and offers her lips to Moka, who accepts them greedily.
Neither of them know who it is that breaks the kiss for air, but both of them are breathing heavily. “I’ll walk you to class tomorrow,” Moka says, teasing Mizore’s lips with her fingernail before smirking and walking away, adding just enough shake to her hips to keep Mizore’s eyes glued to them.
Mizore does not move for a very long time.
The morning sun greets Mizore with bright sunlight. She curses the fact that she forgot to close her curtains last night, having noticed that Moka’s room is directly across from her and she could easily see the vampire in her room. Mizore hadn’t realized, however, that if she could see Moka then Moka could see her.
Mizore groans and kicks off her sheets, skin crawling with the heat. “Ugh, why couldn’t Mother have waited until the dead of winter to send me here?” She rests her arm over her eyes in an attempt to block out the light and her eyes flutter shut with a sigh.
Abruptly she is reminded that she will be seeing Moka soon, and that thought is enough to propel Mizore out of bed. She slides her trademark thigh-high purple socks over her legs and is in the middle of pulling her shirt on when she pauses. Why is she so excited to see Moka?
No, Mizore thinks obstinately as she continues getting dressed. I am not hers. I don’t want to be hers. I won’t let her take me. What would Mother say? Despite her seemingly solid resolution, Mizore is shaken. She doesn’t know what to think of the Mighty Vampire Moka. She shook her head numbly, not stopping the action until she was sufficiently dizzy. Moka had known her for less than a day, why would she want her so much?
Mizore remembers more from the vampire book she had read years ago, and she shudders at the memory.
Vampires—especially incredibly strong vampires (which are known as S-Class) form a special bond with the first live person they drink from, be it human or monster. This bond enables the vampire to sense things from the bitee, enabling the vampire to properly protect them, as other vampires and monsters often seek to possess something. No one knows why this special bond, called an Imprint, makes the human or monster more alluring and charismatic. The bond also makes it difficult for the human or monster to resist the vampire. Once it has been formed, it can only be broken by another vampire possessing the bitee.
So…that was it. Mizore had been Imprinted? She shakes her head at this and stands, the sudden action eliciting yet another round of dizziness. She grips the dresser that sits beside her bed and can’t help but glance over at Moka’s room. It is conspicuously empty.
Mizore secretly likes the way her heart flutters at that. If her room was empty…then that means Moka is waiting for Mizore. She can’t stop the smile that stretches across her face, almost as bright as the blinding sunlight.
Mizore finds Moka waiting for her in the doorway leading out of the building, standing in the slight shade it offers. She blushes as Moka smirks and leans down to kiss her hello. “Good morning, Mizore. Did you sleep well last night?” For a moment Mizore can’t speak, because she had slept unexpectedly well (she hadn’t thought she would sleep, knowing how close Moka was). The problem? Her dreams had been littered with a familiar set of eyes and flowing white hair. The cause of her restlessness stood before her, a familiar smirk adorning her features.
“Uh, yes,” Mizore finally stammers, her blush deepening. “I slept…fine.” She remembers what the book had said about vampires sensing things from the person they had Imprinted with, and hopes desperately that it is wrong, that they aren’t Imprinted. She jumps in surprise when Moka takes her hand and begins walking with her toward the school.
The touch is electric. It is so small, so innocent, and yet the feel of Moka spreads over her skin like fire. Mizore has to refrain herself from squeezing her hand. She glances to their right, at the dark forest, and shivers. Moka looks down at her.
“Something is wrong.” It isn’t a question. Mizore can’t meet her questioning gaze. “Do you wish to speak with me about it?” This time, her tone is soft and gently and Mizore finds that she doesn’t want to worry about it by herself anymore.
“When I was a kid I read a book about vampires,” she begins. “It was forbidden to me, but I ignored that and read it anyway. I remember things from it.” She pauses and looks up at Moka, her eyes beginning to fill with tears. “Have we Imprinted?” she asks, her voice small and tiny. For all the toughness Mizore likes to exude, in that moment she wants nothing more than to feel the hug of a mother around her. Her mother, though, isn’t particularly the loving type, especially not in cases like this. Mizore is expected to meet a boy and marry him and then give her village as many babies as possible.
After meeting Moka, she knows that isn’t possible anymore.
Moka hesitates before answering.
“Yes. We have Imprinted.” She does not say what Mizore already knows, that monsters powerful enough to smell the Imprint on her will want to steal her away from her vampire, will want to take her away from Moka merely for the sake of fighting the mighty vampire and winning. Mizore swallows nervously.
“Don’t worry, Mizore. I’ll protect you.” Moka squeezes Mizore’s hand soothingly and just like that, she isn’t worried anymore. No one can beat Moka. No one will ever beat Moka.
But what if someone could?
Three weeks later and Mizore was beginning to realize how exhausting it was to be tied to a vampire. She was being fed from at least once a day, and though the feedings were pleasurable she was beginning to feel tired from the events, beginning to actually feel the blood loss. She knows that if she says something Moka will refrain from feeding for a few days, but she doesn’t want to. Moka needs all the strength she can get.
At least, that’s what Mizore says to comfort herself. Truthfully, she likes it when Moka feeds from her. And, well, saying Moka needs to be strong in order to justify herself wasn’t that bad, right? Especially considering it was Moka’s fault that she was even in this mess in the first place.
Her current mess happened to be taking place near the strange red sea. She throws a glance at the odd water and sighs softly. If only Mizore could be as strong as her mother, then she would freeze all the water and use the ice to kill the people who took her.
She is kidnapped. Stolen. Taken away from Moka. She is not afraid.
Mizore Shirayuki is annoyed and very, very pissed.
“Just let me go, asshole. I have a term paper to finish and a Lit test to study for, so just let me go. You can fight Moka some other time.” She directs her demands to the guy in charge. He is a student in her class and one that hasn’t spoken to her much, only to ask her out on several occasions. The book was right. Being Imprinted makes her that much more alluring.
Unfortunately.
She heaves a sigh and glances at the forest. She expects Moka to appear soon but she doesn’t, oddly enough. The minutes tick by and soon Mizore grows worried, and afraid. She sighs once more and takes matters into her own hands.
She freezes the ropes that bind her, and they break easily. The boy has one second to shout a warning before she freezes him solid and begins freezing her way out of the crowd of people who were involved in this particular kidnapping.
Mizore is unprepared. She does not know who awaits her on the opposite end of frozen boys.
It is a fire monster.
He laughs at her confusion as he traps her in a ring of fire. “What, yuki-Onna? Are you afraid?” His laugh turns menacing and the ring shrinks enough to cause Mizore to fall to her knees. She needed cold. She needed ice.
What’s more, if the fire touched her, she would die.
They both know that.
“Where is your precious vampire? Can’t she take care of her own monster?” He throws his head back and roars, making the trees around them shake. “Come and get me, mighty Vampire! Before I take what is rightfully mine.” The fire disappears and he slinks closer to Mizore.
“We are opposites, you and me. Yin and Yang. Today, I will take my other half, and I will break the bond between you and Moka.” Mizore rolls her eyes and scans the surrounding forest once more. Still, Moka is absent. Where is she? Her gaze shoots back to the monster when fire whizzes past her head.
“What the hell are you doing?” She shrieks as she skids out of the way. “That could have killed me! How are you going to claim me if I’m dead?” Mizore begins to form something of a plan in her head and she has to refrain from smirking. Moka is not here, but that’s fine, because Mizore is here, and she knows how to take care of herself. She ignores the blatant proof of the opposite—that in reality she was vulnerable if she could even get kidnapped in the first place—and smiles at the fire monster.
This makes him pause. A smile? Where did that come from? She is supposed to be screaming and fighting, but now she is…flirting? Mizore twirls a piece of purple hair around her fingers and shoots him another smile. She tells him he is hot, making a joke about his fire abilities, and he laughs, surprising them both. He introduces himself.
“I am Kyo. Thank you for surrendering.” Mizore smirks and steps forward, placing her hands on his chest, though the action sickens her. She runs them up and down the smooth, muscled planes of his chest and lets a soft breath escape her lips.
“I am not surrendering. I can’t surrender if I wanted you to do this the whole time.” Shocked, he catches her wrists in his hands and stares at her.
“What did you just say?” Mizore sees a bit of disappointment in his eyes—he merely wants to fight Moka—but then that disappointment is replaced with something else, a hunger she doesn’t want to look too much at.
“I said…” she pulls her wrists from his grasp and puts them on either side of his face. “I said you’re dead,” Mizore says, and freezes him solid. She knows this will kill him.
She doesn’t particularly care.
The other monsters have already melted halfway, and Mizore flees the scene before anyone else decides they want to mess with her. The only thought in her mind as she runs is Moka. Where was the vampire? Is she okay? Images of Moka—tied up and being beaten—taking someone else—loving someone other than Mizore—leaving her and never returning—bruised and battered and beaten—dead—run through her mind, only adding to her speed.
She knows Moka’s weakness is water. She also knows that, in her true form (which wasn’t really a true form so much as an increase in power) Moka is not as hurt by water, but even so two bottles of water are enough to weaken her considerably. Had someone discovered their secret? Is someone trying to steal her?
Mizore goes to Moka’s room first, to see if there is any evidence.
And, oh, there is more than evidence.
Moka is there.
Moka is alive.
Moka is with someone else.
It is that annoying Kurumu girl, the succubus. Mizore wonders briefly if perhaps Moka succumbed to her powers and is now a slave, but that is not possible. Moka is simply too powerful for that, and Kurumu is not powerful at all compared to her.
Mizore freezes after having flung open the door. It hits the wall with a loud thump and both girls freeze. “Moka?” Mizore asks. The word is broken, is bent and twisted around to mean something else entirely. She is really asking ‘did you ever love me?’
The girls are naked. They are on top of the sheets and Mizore can see exactly what they are doing. She wishes that this hadn’t happened, that she had walked by instead, but she knows that this is better than finding out later. Annoyingly enough, tears well up in her eyes.
Moka is the first one to stand. “Mizore,” she says, her voice not cold but not exactly warm, either. Mizore doesn’t want to hear whatever it is she has to say.
“No, Moka! I thought you loved me! I thought we had something!” Mizore realizes that she is nearing hysteria and tries in vain to calm herself down but nothing in the world is calming enough to bring her back. She is too far gone, lost in the memories she has with Moka. When the vampire told her she loved her, was she lying?
Had she been using her for blood?
Moka moves to grab Mizore’s wrist as she begins to turn away, but the Snow Woman is having none of it. She yanks her arm out of the way and seethes, “It’s over. Imprint with her instead. I don’t want you anymore. You can’t have any of my blood, ever again!” With that, Mizore runs out the room, slamming the door behind her.
Mizore is pissed. The sadness will come later, she knows, but she is angry, angry enough to melt away her shyness and make her march up to Ginei’s dorm room, the same Ginei that Tsukune had been eyeing the first day of school. He opens the door after a few seconds, sleepy-eyed and wearing nothing but pajama pants. His eyes widen.
“Mizore? What are you doing here? You’re going to get in trouble if you get caught in the boy’s dorm, come on in.” He ushers her into his room and closes the door after glancing around the hallway. Mizore sits on his bed and tries not to fidget.
Ginei is known for being a horndog, which is an incredibly accurate description of him, considering he’s a werewolf. A perverted werewolf.
He’s the perfect person for Mizore right now.
“You’re a werewolf, right?” Mizore asks bluntly, although the abruptness of that question prepares neither of them for the questions that follow. Gin nods. “So that means you get in heat. Are you in heat now?” A single glance at his crotch answers her question. Gin leans against the door, hands behind his back, willing himself not to pounce on Mizore. When he’s in heat…and has no one, it hurts. Physically. The pain is agonizing, and it’s even worse if he jerks off. The pain is coming to a peak right now as he finds himself wondering why Mizore had come here, at this hour.
“I want to fuck you,” Mizore says, and she is the only one who isn’t shocked. Gin merely looks at her, still himself enough to ask if she is sure. She nods and kicks off her shoes, pulls off her shirt and skirt and scoots back on his bed. He approaches, looking at the way she folds into herself, as if her bones are bruised, are something to be hidden. Gin ignores her vulnerability and pushes her down gently, hovering on all fours over her.
Mizore swallows nervously. She is about to lose her virginity, with Gin, of all people. Then she remembers the way Moka had stroked Kurumu before she made her presence known and she is granted enough courage to loop a hand around the back of his neck and pull him down for a kiss.
It isn’t like it is with Moka, searing and unforgettable. Gin tastes like regret and demons Mizore will never be capable of seeing, tastes like he has had many girls before her. He tastes like someone who will forget her tomorrow.
She doesn’t care, though. Mizore pulls off the remainder of her clothing, including her socks, and helps him out of his own clothing. Gin searches his dresser drawer for a condom and leaves it on the dresser, waiting. He kisses promises he can’t keep into her skin, trails his fingers like knives down her arms and waits for Mizore, waits for a cry of pain or pleasure, waits for her to tell him what she wants. Mizore does not disappoint.
“Just take me,” she whispers, the meaning behind those words going right over Gin’s head. Mizore knows that if he takes her, the Imprint will be broken. She doesn’t understand the Imprint or what it is, really, but she does know that it tied her and Moka together and she no longer wants to be tied. She doesn’t want her anymore.
The fire in her stomach says otherwise.
Gin slides the condom on and takes his dick in his hand, letting the head rub against Mizore. She lets out a soft sigh of frustration, which he of course misinterprets. Without another moment’s hesitation he enters her, eliciting a gasp of pain. Gin is still himself enough to hold still and wait for her to adjust around him, and when she does he begins moving, thrusting long and deep into her.
Mizore wraps her legs around his waist to allow better access and falls back onto his pillows, reaches up a hand to wipe away sweat that mists on her forehead. She closes her eyes but opens them immediately when images of Moka and Kurumu swim on her closed eyelids. The images are enough incentive to grab Gin and pull him down for another kiss. She begins to move under him and lets slight moans escape her mouth. Gin swallows the moans and kisses her around them, kissing a girl he doesn’t know is bruised and battered and using him as a tool to forget. He doesn’t know that she is breaking on the inside as they move rhythmically together, doesn’t know the pain that comes when an Imprint is broken.
It breaks when Gin comes. It takes longer than he had thought it would, considering he was in heat. He pulls out with the intention to change condoms and go again when Mizore cries out in pain and sits up, scooting far away from him. She doubles over into herself and ignores him when he asks if he did something wrong.
The pain is searing, scarring and absolutely everywhere. The fire trails in her veins, in her bones, in her ribs and her head and Mizore doesn’t know what to do other than to attempt to hold herself together. Gin pulls her into his arms and whispers sweet nothings in her ears in an attempt to quiet her cries, and it works. She focuses on him telling her that everything will be okay and tries to ignore the pain.
She brings up a memory of her and Moka in her mind.
It is a cold day. Mizore wants nothing more than to go to the small lake she had discovered one day whilst exploring, and Moka wants to join her. She doesn’t protest as the vampire falls into step beside her, doesn’t say a word when she grabs her hand. They walk to the lake without speaking, although to Mizore it seems that they never did have to say anything.
Words are foolish. She says everything she needs to in her kisses, in the way she presses her face into the curve of Moka’s neck as she sucks her blood, in the way she squeezes her hand before letting go. Words are clumsy to Mizore, and so she must use other means to communicate.
Trouble is, she doesn’t know what it is she wants to say.
That day, though, Mizore had no worries. She forgot her clumsiness and her forgetfulness (ironically enough). She froze the lake solid and walked out on to it, noticeable more graceful on ice than on land. The vampire follows after a moment’s hesitation, just as graceful as Mizore. They lie down on the cool ice together and look up at the stars.
“Do you know how many stars there are?” Mizore asks as they lie together. It is a question she asked nearly daily in her childhood. She smiles softly as she remembers how it used to drive her mother crazy.
“One for each reason I love you,” Moka says, surprising her. Mizore turns her head to look at her incredulously but Moka is faster, and she catches Mizore’s lips with her own, tasting all the unspoken questions in her mouth.
Mizore is lost in moments like this. At times, Moka could be cold and arrogant, but now—this was the Moka she loved. The Moka she was when no one but Mizore was around for miles.
The meaning behind Moka’s words finally catches up to her and Mizore pulls away. “Wait…does that mean you love me?” She sits up and regards Moka silently, waiting.
“Yes,” Moka says simply, catching Mizore’s cheek in her hand. “Yes, Mizore. I love you.”
Mizore does not know what to say. To her, love means forever, and she doesn’t know if she wants to disgrace her mother and her village by being with a woman and therefore unable to birth any children. Moka’s lips convince her that it’s worth it, though, and she finds herself whispering in the stillness of the night.
“Forever?”
“Forever.”
The pain fades, like all pain must, and when it does Mizore puts her clothing back on. Gin watches her dress from the bed, disappointment rolling off him in waves. That had numbed the pain but it would be back soon, and he had hoped Mizore would stay to help keep it at bay. She wouldn’t, though, and he knew he had to let her go.
Gin couldn’t help but with he could let himself go, too.
Mizore is…lost. Lost without Moka and lost without the hope the vampire had blossomed within the Snow Woman. She finds herself back at the red sea, back where it all began. She had been brought here when she was kidnapped. She rescued herself here.
This is where she fought for herself.
This is where she’s going to stop fighting.
She approaches the edge of the cliff and looks down at the red waves breaking against the rocks below. It was high, about twenty feet. Mizore closes her eyes and her lips move in a soundless whisper. She hears someone behind her and spins, eyes widening when she sees Moka standing not ten feet away.
“Moka,” Mizore says, breathlessly, as if she’s just run a mile.
“Mizore.” The word is clipped and brief. Mizore knows why.
“The Imprint,” Mizore says. “I broke it.” Moka nods.
“I know you did.”
“I’m not sorry.”
Moka has no reply to this, no reaction at all aside from the slight narrowing of her eyes.
Silence reigns for several moments, in which the two girls stare at each other uncertainly. Neither know where to go from here.
“I saw you with Kurumu,” Mizore blurts, then blushes. She had spoken to Moka then, the vampire obviously already knew, but Moka ignores the stupidity of her outburst and sighs.
“I’m sorry about that, Mizore. It was not my intention to hurt you.”
“Why did you do it?” Mizore’s voice is, embarrassingly enough, vulnerable and small. She knows Moka has the power to break her heart, but she doesn’t care, she just wants the truth.
“Because I wanted her,” Moka says honestly, and the words are enough to harden Mizore’s resolve. She stalks forward and, standing on her tip-toes, presses her lips against Moka’s. The vampire’s mouth is familiar, all the tastes and smells are the same. Mizore feels as if she’s come home.
When Moka has the audacity to flick her tongue over Mizore’s lips as if asking for entrance, Mizore breaks the kiss, her eyes an apology.
“This,” she says, tapping Moka’s lips with her index finger to show what she means, “is my swan song.” The meaning catches up to Moka too late, and she watches as Mizore backs up slowly, then all at once. She launches herself off the side of the cliff and does not reappear, does not pop her head back up and laugh and say it was all a joke. Moka makes herself move after several seconds have passed and she looks down at the water, hoping against hope to see her beloved holding on, but she is nowhere. The water is calm.
Moka falls to her knees, face blank.
It’s almost as if Mizore was never really here at all.
