Kiba - Chapter 3
Title: Kiba
Author: phoenix_zeal
Pairings: Akame, JinDa
Rating: R
Genre: Fantasy, Romance, Angst
Disclaimer: If I owned them I'd be too busy to write...
Beta: death_note13 ♥
Summary: Jin had always been different from the other people in the small town but he had no idea why. Struggling with feeling unloved and strange, he only had his childhood friend Kazuya. One night a creature enters his life and changes it forever, revealing things that he'd never imagined could be real.
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2
Jin almost tripped and fell down the stairs but he grabbed the banister and managed to stay on his feet. He knew that he could see in the dark better than some others but he couldn’t see when it was pitch black. Slowly he walked down the stairs and then fumbled to find the light switch, turning on the small ceiling lamp and squinting while his eyes adjusted to the light.
What he saw when the light had stopped blinding him almost made him laugh out loud; Tatsuya had somehow gotten so tangled with the sheets that they were wrapped around him like a cocoon and apparently he couldn’t get out.
“I would just rip them but I thought that you might not appreciate that”, Tatsuya said, trying to sound dignified although he’d never felt more embarrassed in his entire life; in fact he’d never felt embarrassed before.
Was humanity contagious? Tatsuya hoped not or he would run back to the forest and roll around in the mud and kill so many animals that no one could mistake him for being human ever again.
“Thank you for being so considerate”, Jin said, hiding a smile behind his hand. “Do you want me to help you?”
Tatsuya nodded and Jin kneeled down beside him, working on getting the sheets untangled. It was quite obvious that the creature wasn’t used to things such as baths and sleeping on a mattress with sheets. That only created even more curiosity in Jin to find out who or what Tatsuya really was.
“Are you hungry?” Jin asked as they ascended the stairs together, Tatsuya finally freed from the cotton prison.
“I don’t have to eat yet but go ahead”, Tatsuya said, following Jin to the kitchen. “I don’t mind if you eat.”
“Are you sure? Because I brought this with me from work”, he took out one of the bags of blood from the fridge and instantly there was a hunger beyond description in Tatsuya’s eyes.
It was frightening but also exhilarating and yet Jin found himself almost backing away when Tatsuya approached him to take the bag from his hands. Before the creature could take it however, Jin spoke again.
“What are you really? Are you a vampire?”
Some of the hunger in Tatsuya’s eyes faded away as he looked at the man with a slightly amused expression on his face. Grabbing the bag from Jin’s hands with a quick and smooth motion he bit into it and drank the blood while keeping eye contact with the man. A stream of red flowed down his chin and trickled down, staining the white t-shirt.
Jin gasped, leaning against the wall as he was unable to tear his gaze away from the scene in front of him. His heart pounded loudly like a drum in his ears when all of the blood in the bag was gone and Tatsuya wiped his chin with the back of his hand. The man licked his dry lips and the creature licked the red liquid from his.
“No, I’m not a vampire”, Tatsuya said, a smirk playing on his still red lips; somehow he seemed more vibrant and even more enchanting than before.
“B-but you drink blood... you have fangs, you sleep during the day!” Jin’s voice trembled and his stomach growled, somehow still hungry even after what he’d witnessed.
“I will explain everything to you but first you need to eat and I suppose that I need to clean up”, the creature looked down at the blood stained t-shirt; usually he wouldn’t care but humans seemed fond of cleanliness.
Jin found a new t-shirt for him to wear and he washed his face and neck in the sink while the man prepared a simple meal for himself. Both of them sat down at the kitchen table, Jin eating his food while watching Tatsuya warily. He still wasn’t that scared of the creature which he supposed was strange but he knew that he wouldn’t trust Tatsuya as much anymore. Although he’d never read anything about vampires drinking animal blood it was still a possibility that Tatsuya was one and wanted to drink his blood.
“I’m not a vampire, they don’t exist”, Tatsuya said when they’d been staring at each other in silence for awhile. “I suppose that the vampire legends might have been created because of Kiba though. Just like humans are, we’re animals. I know that humans don’t like to think of themselves as animals but nevertheless they are. You could say that humans and Kiba are two races of the same species and we’re similar in a lot of ways.”
“Then why haven’t I heard of you before?” Jin asked.
“From what I know humans and Kiba used to live in harmony with each other but since we’re more efficient hunters than you and we occasionally hunt humans we were seen as a threat and hunted down. There are not many of us left and we keep hidden most of the time.”
“But if you’re more efficient hunters than humans, why didn’t you win? I mean, why are there so many humans and so few Kiba?”
“Humans spread like a plague, they breed quicker than us and they developed pesky technology while we prefer to stay close to what nature made us”, Tatsuya smiled but there wasn’t one trace of happiness in it. “They always think that they’re better than other animals but in so many ways they’re much worse.”
Jin thought about what Tatsuya had said and he guessed that the other had no reason to lie. He already knew that humans were vicious and despicable even if he was one of them; they filled him with loathing and disgust.
“Why do you speak the same language as humans though?” Jin asked, breaking out of his bitter thoughts.
“Sometimes we manage to trick people into thinking that we’re human too. Though I think it’s because we used to live closer to each other and once humans lived like a part of nature too.”
Jin frowned, what Tatsuya had told him was fascinating and believable but it was difficult to accept the fact that something like Kiba could exist without him knowing about it. Perhaps they were the reason to why the townspeople feared the dark so much. Had something happened before as they also avoided the forest where Tatsuya said that he lived? It felt like he needed to know much more to be able to actually understand and yet he couldn’t find any questions to ask.
“How much of what’s written in vampire legends are actual facts about Kiba?” he asked after thinking for awhile but not being able to think of any better questions.
“We drink blood but not necessarily human blood, that’s very rarely”, Tatsuya replied. “We’ve got fangs, obviously”, he grinned, “we don’t come out during the day but as opposed to coffins we sleep in burrows in the ground. Sunlight doesn’t kill us but it blinds us and makes us weak... don’t tell that to anyone. We’re also faster than humans and we don’t have emotions the same way humans do, we only have needs and cravings.”
“How come you’re not blinded by the lamps if sunlight blinds you?”
“It’s not as strong as sunlight in most cases but it does impair my sight somewhat.”
Jin nodded; even humans were sometimes blinded by sharp sunlight so it wasn’t strange if a night living creature was. He could see how that would be a disadvantage though because even if humans had weak sight during night-time, they could always use lamps and lanterns so they had no time of day when they were practically incapacitated like Kiba seemed to be.
“Do you really have no emotions?” he asked, a bit perturbed at the thought.
“We do have some kind of emotions I suppose but not the emotions that I’ve heard humans describe or read in books when my parents forced me to learn how to read”, Tatsuya grimaced. “We don’t have anything like love but we stick together in clans because we’re more likely to survive that way.”
“That must feel very empty”, Jin said even though he didn’t know if he’d ever actually loved anyone... except for his mother.
“One cannot feel empty because of an emotion one has never had”, Tatsuya smiled slightly. “Don’t think that you have to feel something because humanity dictates you to. Just because you’re different it doesn’t mean that there’s something wrong with you.”
Why did it feel like Tatsuya who wasn’t even human could understand him better than everyone else? Was it because the creature wasn’t living after the rules of human society? Jin felt a stronger connection with Tatsuya than he had with anyone else.
“I guess that you can’t turn me into a Kiba like you like vampires can turn humans into vampires, can you?” Jin asked and Tatsuya chuckled, shaking his head.
“Sorry, no, but I can show you your own strengths. I think that I know them better than anyone else.”
“Shouldn’t I know what I can do better than you?” Jin raised an eyebrow.
“You’re so stuck with thinking that you have limits to everything which is why you don’t know your own strength”, Tatsuya said, standing up. “If you’re finished with your food now then there’s no reason for you not to follow me.”
“Besides the fact that you’re an animal that might drink my blood?”
“Exactly.”
Jin left the used plate in the sink and then they left his house, walking down the streets heading for the edge of town. He was curious to see what Tatsuya meant when he said that Jin didn’t know his own strength. The man didn’t think that he’d limited himself with his thoughts in any way.
They arrived at the wide field which separated the town from the dark forest and Tatsuya stopped, causing Jin to almost walk into him.
“I want you to run to the edge of the forest and back here as fast as you can”, Tatsuya said and Jin’s eyes widened.
“But it’s so far and I’m not exactly that well trained”, he said. “It will take forever.”
“Not if you use your true speed and strength”, Tatsuya suddenly stood a few meters away. “You’ll never be as fast as me but I think that you’ll be able to come pretty close.”
“But that’s not something that humans can do no matter how hard they try”, Jin protested. “It’s not within our ability.”
“Don’t let those kinds of thoughts limit you. You’ll never find your true self if you always think like that. If you always believe whatever they’ve told you while you were growing up.”
Jin had no idea what Tatsuya meant; even if he cast away everything that he believed that he couldn’t do it still wouldn’t mean that he could break the laws of physics. Tatsuya’s speed seemed to be impossible but it was explained by the fact that he wasn’t human so there must be some way that the build of his body was different and made it possible for him to be so fast.
Tatsuya saw Jin’s hesitation so he sighed and said, “Just try it. If you don’t try I will bite you.”
“No, you won’t”, Jin said, not knowing why he was so sure of that.
“Fine. What if I tell you that you’re different from other humans?”
“What do you mean?”
“When I walked into town I was only hoping to find a foolish human whose blood I could drink but instead I found you. I know who you are and that’s why I didn’t just feed on you.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about”, Jin said, a weird sense of dread building in his chest.
“Back when I was merely a child one of the members of our clan went into town despite the fact that everyone tried to stop him”, Tatsuya said. “The clan wouldn’t have minded if he’d only meant to feed but he wanted to do something different. He wanted to see if he could make a human woman desire him despite of what he was, he wanted to play with her and make her fall in love with him.”
Jin shook his head, not wanting to hear more of Tatsuya’s story. It couldn’t be...
“He found a woman willing to hide him in her home and she did fall in love with him. It even went so far that she was expecting his child before he was found and killed by other humans. They couldn’t kill her child however that she protected fiercely once it was born and the clan has been following its progress ever since then but from a safe distance.”
“You’re lying, nothing like that has ever happened”, Jin said, stumbling backwards away from Tatsuya.
“You are that child, Jin”, Tatsuya continued ruthlessly.
“No, I can’t be.”
Jin’s heart beat faster than ever before and he felt like he could hardly breathe as Tatsuya’s unemotional gaze was locked with his devastated one. How could something like that be true? On the other hand; how could it not be true? It would explain so many things.
“How do I know your name then? You never told me your name, Akanishi Jin. Everything I’ve told you is true.”
Tatsuya watched as Jin turned around and ran back into town with a speed that wasn’t natural for a human. He smiled amusedly and he knew that Jin would come looking for him sooner or later. The creature turned around and vanished into the dark forest.
---
A/N: So that's what Kiba are. That's what Tatsuya is. And uh, obviously Jin is very special.
I will go hide now, bye bye.
Author: phoenix_zeal
Pairings: Akame, JinDa
Rating: R
Genre: Fantasy, Romance, Angst
Disclaimer: If I owned them I'd be too busy to write...
Beta: death_note13 ♥
Summary: Jin had always been different from the other people in the small town but he had no idea why. Struggling with feeling unloved and strange, he only had his childhood friend Kazuya. One night a creature enters his life and changes it forever, revealing things that he'd never imagined could be real.
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2
Jin almost tripped and fell down the stairs but he grabbed the banister and managed to stay on his feet. He knew that he could see in the dark better than some others but he couldn’t see when it was pitch black. Slowly he walked down the stairs and then fumbled to find the light switch, turning on the small ceiling lamp and squinting while his eyes adjusted to the light.
What he saw when the light had stopped blinding him almost made him laugh out loud; Tatsuya had somehow gotten so tangled with the sheets that they were wrapped around him like a cocoon and apparently he couldn’t get out.
“I would just rip them but I thought that you might not appreciate that”, Tatsuya said, trying to sound dignified although he’d never felt more embarrassed in his entire life; in fact he’d never felt embarrassed before.
Was humanity contagious? Tatsuya hoped not or he would run back to the forest and roll around in the mud and kill so many animals that no one could mistake him for being human ever again.
“Thank you for being so considerate”, Jin said, hiding a smile behind his hand. “Do you want me to help you?”
Tatsuya nodded and Jin kneeled down beside him, working on getting the sheets untangled. It was quite obvious that the creature wasn’t used to things such as baths and sleeping on a mattress with sheets. That only created even more curiosity in Jin to find out who or what Tatsuya really was.
“Are you hungry?” Jin asked as they ascended the stairs together, Tatsuya finally freed from the cotton prison.
“I don’t have to eat yet but go ahead”, Tatsuya said, following Jin to the kitchen. “I don’t mind if you eat.”
“Are you sure? Because I brought this with me from work”, he took out one of the bags of blood from the fridge and instantly there was a hunger beyond description in Tatsuya’s eyes.
It was frightening but also exhilarating and yet Jin found himself almost backing away when Tatsuya approached him to take the bag from his hands. Before the creature could take it however, Jin spoke again.
“What are you really? Are you a vampire?”
Some of the hunger in Tatsuya’s eyes faded away as he looked at the man with a slightly amused expression on his face. Grabbing the bag from Jin’s hands with a quick and smooth motion he bit into it and drank the blood while keeping eye contact with the man. A stream of red flowed down his chin and trickled down, staining the white t-shirt.
Jin gasped, leaning against the wall as he was unable to tear his gaze away from the scene in front of him. His heart pounded loudly like a drum in his ears when all of the blood in the bag was gone and Tatsuya wiped his chin with the back of his hand. The man licked his dry lips and the creature licked the red liquid from his.
“No, I’m not a vampire”, Tatsuya said, a smirk playing on his still red lips; somehow he seemed more vibrant and even more enchanting than before.
“B-but you drink blood... you have fangs, you sleep during the day!” Jin’s voice trembled and his stomach growled, somehow still hungry even after what he’d witnessed.
“I will explain everything to you but first you need to eat and I suppose that I need to clean up”, the creature looked down at the blood stained t-shirt; usually he wouldn’t care but humans seemed fond of cleanliness.
Jin found a new t-shirt for him to wear and he washed his face and neck in the sink while the man prepared a simple meal for himself. Both of them sat down at the kitchen table, Jin eating his food while watching Tatsuya warily. He still wasn’t that scared of the creature which he supposed was strange but he knew that he wouldn’t trust Tatsuya as much anymore. Although he’d never read anything about vampires drinking animal blood it was still a possibility that Tatsuya was one and wanted to drink his blood.
“I’m not a vampire, they don’t exist”, Tatsuya said when they’d been staring at each other in silence for awhile. “I suppose that the vampire legends might have been created because of Kiba though. Just like humans are, we’re animals. I know that humans don’t like to think of themselves as animals but nevertheless they are. You could say that humans and Kiba are two races of the same species and we’re similar in a lot of ways.”
“Then why haven’t I heard of you before?” Jin asked.
“From what I know humans and Kiba used to live in harmony with each other but since we’re more efficient hunters than you and we occasionally hunt humans we were seen as a threat and hunted down. There are not many of us left and we keep hidden most of the time.”
“But if you’re more efficient hunters than humans, why didn’t you win? I mean, why are there so many humans and so few Kiba?”
“Humans spread like a plague, they breed quicker than us and they developed pesky technology while we prefer to stay close to what nature made us”, Tatsuya smiled but there wasn’t one trace of happiness in it. “They always think that they’re better than other animals but in so many ways they’re much worse.”
Jin thought about what Tatsuya had said and he guessed that the other had no reason to lie. He already knew that humans were vicious and despicable even if he was one of them; they filled him with loathing and disgust.
“Why do you speak the same language as humans though?” Jin asked, breaking out of his bitter thoughts.
“Sometimes we manage to trick people into thinking that we’re human too. Though I think it’s because we used to live closer to each other and once humans lived like a part of nature too.”
Jin frowned, what Tatsuya had told him was fascinating and believable but it was difficult to accept the fact that something like Kiba could exist without him knowing about it. Perhaps they were the reason to why the townspeople feared the dark so much. Had something happened before as they also avoided the forest where Tatsuya said that he lived? It felt like he needed to know much more to be able to actually understand and yet he couldn’t find any questions to ask.
“How much of what’s written in vampire legends are actual facts about Kiba?” he asked after thinking for awhile but not being able to think of any better questions.
“We drink blood but not necessarily human blood, that’s very rarely”, Tatsuya replied. “We’ve got fangs, obviously”, he grinned, “we don’t come out during the day but as opposed to coffins we sleep in burrows in the ground. Sunlight doesn’t kill us but it blinds us and makes us weak... don’t tell that to anyone. We’re also faster than humans and we don’t have emotions the same way humans do, we only have needs and cravings.”
“How come you’re not blinded by the lamps if sunlight blinds you?”
“It’s not as strong as sunlight in most cases but it does impair my sight somewhat.”
Jin nodded; even humans were sometimes blinded by sharp sunlight so it wasn’t strange if a night living creature was. He could see how that would be a disadvantage though because even if humans had weak sight during night-time, they could always use lamps and lanterns so they had no time of day when they were practically incapacitated like Kiba seemed to be.
“Do you really have no emotions?” he asked, a bit perturbed at the thought.
“We do have some kind of emotions I suppose but not the emotions that I’ve heard humans describe or read in books when my parents forced me to learn how to read”, Tatsuya grimaced. “We don’t have anything like love but we stick together in clans because we’re more likely to survive that way.”
“That must feel very empty”, Jin said even though he didn’t know if he’d ever actually loved anyone... except for his mother.
“One cannot feel empty because of an emotion one has never had”, Tatsuya smiled slightly. “Don’t think that you have to feel something because humanity dictates you to. Just because you’re different it doesn’t mean that there’s something wrong with you.”
Why did it feel like Tatsuya who wasn’t even human could understand him better than everyone else? Was it because the creature wasn’t living after the rules of human society? Jin felt a stronger connection with Tatsuya than he had with anyone else.
“I guess that you can’t turn me into a Kiba like you like vampires can turn humans into vampires, can you?” Jin asked and Tatsuya chuckled, shaking his head.
“Sorry, no, but I can show you your own strengths. I think that I know them better than anyone else.”
“Shouldn’t I know what I can do better than you?” Jin raised an eyebrow.
“You’re so stuck with thinking that you have limits to everything which is why you don’t know your own strength”, Tatsuya said, standing up. “If you’re finished with your food now then there’s no reason for you not to follow me.”
“Besides the fact that you’re an animal that might drink my blood?”
“Exactly.”
Jin left the used plate in the sink and then they left his house, walking down the streets heading for the edge of town. He was curious to see what Tatsuya meant when he said that Jin didn’t know his own strength. The man didn’t think that he’d limited himself with his thoughts in any way.
They arrived at the wide field which separated the town from the dark forest and Tatsuya stopped, causing Jin to almost walk into him.
“I want you to run to the edge of the forest and back here as fast as you can”, Tatsuya said and Jin’s eyes widened.
“But it’s so far and I’m not exactly that well trained”, he said. “It will take forever.”
“Not if you use your true speed and strength”, Tatsuya suddenly stood a few meters away. “You’ll never be as fast as me but I think that you’ll be able to come pretty close.”
“But that’s not something that humans can do no matter how hard they try”, Jin protested. “It’s not within our ability.”
“Don’t let those kinds of thoughts limit you. You’ll never find your true self if you always think like that. If you always believe whatever they’ve told you while you were growing up.”
Jin had no idea what Tatsuya meant; even if he cast away everything that he believed that he couldn’t do it still wouldn’t mean that he could break the laws of physics. Tatsuya’s speed seemed to be impossible but it was explained by the fact that he wasn’t human so there must be some way that the build of his body was different and made it possible for him to be so fast.
Tatsuya saw Jin’s hesitation so he sighed and said, “Just try it. If you don’t try I will bite you.”
“No, you won’t”, Jin said, not knowing why he was so sure of that.
“Fine. What if I tell you that you’re different from other humans?”
“What do you mean?”
“When I walked into town I was only hoping to find a foolish human whose blood I could drink but instead I found you. I know who you are and that’s why I didn’t just feed on you.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about”, Jin said, a weird sense of dread building in his chest.
“Back when I was merely a child one of the members of our clan went into town despite the fact that everyone tried to stop him”, Tatsuya said. “The clan wouldn’t have minded if he’d only meant to feed but he wanted to do something different. He wanted to see if he could make a human woman desire him despite of what he was, he wanted to play with her and make her fall in love with him.”
Jin shook his head, not wanting to hear more of Tatsuya’s story. It couldn’t be...
“He found a woman willing to hide him in her home and she did fall in love with him. It even went so far that she was expecting his child before he was found and killed by other humans. They couldn’t kill her child however that she protected fiercely once it was born and the clan has been following its progress ever since then but from a safe distance.”
“You’re lying, nothing like that has ever happened”, Jin said, stumbling backwards away from Tatsuya.
“You are that child, Jin”, Tatsuya continued ruthlessly.
“No, I can’t be.”
Jin’s heart beat faster than ever before and he felt like he could hardly breathe as Tatsuya’s unemotional gaze was locked with his devastated one. How could something like that be true? On the other hand; how could it not be true? It would explain so many things.
“How do I know your name then? You never told me your name, Akanishi Jin. Everything I’ve told you is true.”
Tatsuya watched as Jin turned around and ran back into town with a speed that wasn’t natural for a human. He smiled amusedly and he knew that Jin would come looking for him sooner or later. The creature turned around and vanished into the dark forest.
---
A/N: So that's what Kiba are. That's what Tatsuya is. And uh, obviously Jin is very special.
I will go hide now, bye bye.