Serah Eun Park's Story

"Serah..."

Serah began to struggle slowly, shifting five centimeters closer from the center of her desk to the rounded, marked up edge of the wooden desk.

"Serah...wake up. We don't have all day.", the disembodied voice said.

Serah's head shot up hazily yet fast, for she knew sleeping was too good to be true. She began to look up, her eyes getting adjusted to the lighting shining in from the window pane beside her. In front of her was a stocky girl with fair green eyes and black hair, with a height of around 5 ft in pigtails and a school uniform.

"I'm...here again.", she said in disbelief.

"Stop joking around! You always do this. Let's go home.", the girl replies throwing up her arms, her hands balled up in a fist.
She begins to grab her hand and drag her out of the school classroom, to the front entrance, and later down a narrow path.

"I'll see you later...."

A shadowy figure she came to recognize, a girl in traditional clothing came to approach her. As Serah walked every so closely, she replied with a curt bow.

"Mother, it's me Rina, your daughter. Let's go home. I'm planning to help regain your memories today."

They approached home and entered curtly. A quaint wooden house, with tradition sliding Japanese doors peered in the line of sight of Serah and her daughter. They entered the house promptly as rain began to downpour. They sat on futons adjacent to one another.

"I'm ready..Mother." She bared her fangs as she bit the side of her mother's neck, injecting venom through her veins as she sucked on the succulent blood.

Serah collapsed on the floor as she began to regain her memories, flashing back.

10 days ago
A radio hummed over the discordant rain. A recent incident in the Shinjuku Prefecture was reported. A 23 year old young male, Shiro Hatake has been reported missing and presumably dead. Shortly a few days later, it was reported that the victim's clothes were reported spotted in the Aichi-Nagoya Prefecture, bloodstained. The culprit's identity remains a mystery. Serah switched off the bloody radio that she was holding as she smiled curtly and threw it on the floor, staying under the cover of the building roof above her. She parted her dress as she sighed deeply.

"What's all this ruckus over a silly meal? He wasn't even that delicious to begin with.", she said in a low tone. She sighed as the downpour became thunderous and ominous even. She was not the type to walk in the rain. She was too refined to do such a thing. And then again, there she was. Her insatiable hunger was the sole reason she was here. Food. To eat or be eaten, was her profound motto. She looked towards the side of the building where there were a few kids playing with marbles in the rain.

"Delicious appetizers", she thought. She licked her pink lips voraciously as she stepped faintly towards them. Just a little snack then., she said to herself.

She ran towards them and turned her head, giving the kids a reassuring look. As much as she loved strolling around in the afternoon, this must have seemed pointless to her. Although earlier she said she wanted to show up in the kingdom and take leadership, there were no promising results from living in human territory for so long. The old stone path in front of kids was barely visible, and huge trees obstructed the sky, creating an inky black veil around them, misty with the damp trail of droplets cascading against the floor. There was nothing attractive about playing in the rain, so why would they be here? Despite her probable doubts, she still trailed close to him, making sure she didn't lose sight of them.

As soon she approached the kid, she had realized her fatal mistake. She slowly turned the left kid's shoulder, since they were facing their backs towards them as she realized that this was a mannequin.

I've been duped.

Shortly after she had realized, a ticking sound ticked a few times and then stopped with a click, creating a series of explosions, each 20 feet in diameter. Serah promptly got up as she laughed scornfully, her clothes tattered and torn in various places.

The League sends it regards I see.

The dust settled as the rain cleared the debris out of the way. There were about 10, maybe 7 of the finest League magicians accompanied with 3 support casters providing secondary support in the background in a circle.

She laughed maniacally, as her eyes turned into a pitch black vampirism state. "Do you think that is enough to kill ME?", she asked with a conceited air about her. Suddenly as she said that, her desire to finish things and escape quickly before others were on her trail came to mind. She pounced at the mages nearest to her and pierced through their flesh as if it was scissors to paper, slicing finely through bone and organs alike simultaneously. And just like that, they collapsed to the ground. She jumped to the nearest power line tower and made her exit as the humans attempted to chase her down. Unfortunately for them, the rain had veiled her escape.

Serah hopped from post to post as she exited human territory, licking her hand until it was clean of blood. Damn, I've caused a ruckus. Now the League will be after me.

--End--

A familiar insane smirk appeared on Serah's lips as she hugged Rina.
"It's good to be back, my dear. Shall we go hunting?"

"What do you mean I can't hunt yet?", Serah had said with a sullen look. There was nothing to be said about Serah's memory lapse. She still had that insatiable hunger within her. She sat down on the futon again promptly, and took a deep sigh.


"The hunters are after you. I've heard that even the most annoying of nuisances have come to hunt you down."

Rina sighed in unison with her mother as she throws a couple of dossier files.

"This was not easy to come by. Take a look. I need to go to my job as well as my own "house" I will be back to check on you Mother."


Rina stands up promptly, wiping off the residue of dust on her pants from the old futon. It's not like they had owned the house. They had just simply made a "vacancy" within it. The cold shrieks of pain and imminent defeat of the couple residing here before were still soaked within the walls of the confined house. Rina had nor the prowess of her mother nor the strength of the best hand-to-hand fighter. Her forte was intelligence. And it was simply just that, that she was going to utilize. After standing up and stretching her upper torso, Rina grabbed a coat off of the ornate wooden rack, putting it on before opening the door, an entrance to a raining, damp yet desolate place. She stepped out, letting out a breath of cold air, as she brushed off some of the water droplets from her shoulder.

"She always makes such a big fuss...over a meal. I keep telling her to stop playing with her food out of all things."

Serah quickly gets off of the floor and dressed as well. She puts on a pair of rain boots and steps outside briskly. There was one thing or another that she wasn't going to stand, and that was not going to be not satisfying her hunger. She boarded the train heading towards a town on the opposite side of the country.

There was a slight series of crackles as the droplets of rain hit against the cobblestoned road. She saw and heard someone approach her.

Thunk, thunk. thunk, the footsteps told her in unison. A scruffy man in seemingly his early twenties had stepped onto the road. Another unfortunate victim for the femme fatale.

"Excuse me..." she shivered as she waited for him to get past her a bit and tugged on the sleeve of his coat.

"What is it?", the man politely asked with a nonchanging expression. His black umbrella slightly shading his face as the droplets protested in unison with their own unique "thunk". It began to rain harder.

"Perhaps could I take shelter under your umbrella? I forgot mine..."

She quivered to reassure her newfound prey of her feminine charm and unanimous grace even in the worst of conditions. Her shoulders showed a slim slender physique that trailed down to her legs. She received positive affirmation on this as the man proceeded to examine her from head to toe.

"Sure, anything for a woman in distress."

"Oh my, what a gentleman."

Such frivolities and short exchanges continued for about a mile until the man finally asked:

"Where are we heading? I am not too far from here, my house is yonder." he pointed to a chain of smoke coming from a chimney on top of a hill to their left.

A moment of silence passed as they approached the crossroad.

"Nowhere near here."

She leaned against him. Could this be his lucky day the man probably wondered as she opened her gaping mouth and let it sink onto his ripe shoulder. To his astonishment he could no longer feel and quietly passed away less than 30 kilometers away from his dwelling. No one could explain why there was no trace of him aside from his bones.

Serah sat down again in the familiar futon, standing up again in boredom. This cycle repeated for the next half hour until she finally scaled the stairs to the bed room. She plopped onto the bed with a huge thunk, not caring about the frame, creaking in resonance.

"When is she going to get back? She always does the most interesting things without me..."

She tossed and turned, ruffling sheets everywhere until she sat up from her relaxed position. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, her arm resting against her forehead to block her eyes from the sun's rays.



"I'm not a kid." she said without raising her voice or fluctuating it from her regular monotone voice.

She held out her palm as if it was spellbound and a blue flame appeared, flashing its light in Zero's face and soon Forth's face as he also caught up with Zero.

"Wait a second." she stared blankly at the duo as she turned her head to the side slightly and rested her chin on her hand.

"I take that back. Hello Zero, Forth." she motioned a curtsy against her jeans after dispelling her flames.


"I am special Investigator Rina from the Tokyo branch. I'm assigned to be under you two for this joint investigation of the vampire."

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Rina felt her shoulders make a pop sound as her joints eased up with every successive dodge. Zero began to clear the remaining enemies including the one locked onto Rina as a target. There was a certain animosity around her and awareness. Zero seemed to be very suspicious of her. There was nothing she could do about that. The bodies rained down in a series of successive thumps. Rina dusted her shoulder off as she kneeled down and once again picked up some of the ripped cloth of the enemies with her index finger and thumb.

"A bounty hunter. This seems to be employed assassins from the Vampire Order Guild according to my data."

She smiled warmly as she headed up the path to the victim's house as a stumbling figure came out of the dwelling. A smirk was clearly visible from the hooded guise the person wore. His grin widened as he seemed to leap from where he was standing and thrusted his hand through Rina's abdomen twenty feet away.

"What the..." She choked a little blood as a splatter flew from her mouth, splashing on the ground. Her body went limp as her eyes gleamed as the arm inside of her spontaneously ignited. The mysterious person's hood fell off as her purple fell into place. She smiled with a mischevious grin again, licking her lips from her ignited hand as the flames dispersed.

"What a tasty aroma. Nice to meet you, I'm your worst nightmare." She laughed as she licked her hands and lips successively again.



Rina collapsed from where she stood, as their surroundings began to quake and seemingly warp, seeming 100 yards away, 1000, and then....lightyears away.



"Wow what a tasty meal, a woman, a man, and a little boy. A three course meal." She laughed maniacally as her voice resonated with the tiled hallway and floor ahead.

Forth

“Should I finish this up and kill everyone around here hiding or should I get to torching these four that tried to keep attacking me?”

"I'll worry about the bodies." He answered Zero's query. It didn't take very long for the remaining dredges of resistance to fall. As they neared the house however a new foe stepped forward to oppose them. Forth was almost worried that this next attacker would be just as boring when it suddenly lunged forward, taking out this questionable bodyguard of theirs with it's ripping, slender fingers.

"Well, looks like she didn't see that coming." He remarked, the sudden death of the girl not phasing him in the slightest. Had he known what Rina could do that remark would of been far meaner, not that he'd care. The only thing he really felt from her untimely departure was a slight sense of disappointment. He'd hoped he would of got to learn her secrets before she shed her mortal coil.


Noticing the environment's sudden change he kept his eye on their new acquaintance, making sure to watch exactly what she was doing. Being translocated was no excuse for losing track of an enemy. That was not to say he wasn't also keeping an eye on their surroundings. More technically he had subtly dipped his finger in his arcane paint and was tracing an eye on the palm of his hand so he could look behind him while also looking ahead. It was handy since the motion was so subtle it would be very difficult to know he did it and almost impossible for those who aren't familiar with this spell of his to deduce the purpose of the action.

"What a tasty aroma. Nice to meet you, I'm your worst nightmare."

He looked right through her as she spoke. He was not daunted by her threat, just the same as any other threat. He understood she was likely going to try and back it up before too long. His mind raced to try and think of the right words. He wanted this conversation to last just a bit longer just to get her talking more about herself. If they fought now even if they won he'd still know just as much about her as he did now. The possibility was disappointing.


"Wow what a tasty meal, a woman, a man, and a little boy. A three course meal."

She laughed loudly at her own comment. Taking the time she had spent talking he was using the eye on his hand to scan for exits. He didn't like being in traps of another's design. He much preferred for others to be walking carelessly into his traps instead.

He looked over to Zero, gauging his reaction. He seemed concerned but before he could talk Forth spoke first.
"I'd assume your subjects do not formally refer to you as such."


He was running off the assumption that she was a high up noble if not the queen herself given the manner she carried herself. Given the time he had spent studying vampires he's picked up quite a great deal of insight regarding their behavior amongst other things. For a bit he had almost suspected Rina of being the vampire target trying to get the upper hand on them but her rather sudden death swayed him to his current suspicion. After all, he fully expected a target as important as this to put up at least a half decent fight before dying like the rest have. If they were even going to fight that is. He hoped he could sway the direction of this encounter towards a more peaceful solution this time. He couldn't be sure Zero wouldn't blow it though.

"Since you've graced us with a personal meeting I would hope you wouldn't be opposed to sparing a moment from killing us to perhaps converse some. We are the two highest ranking agents currently operating in the field after all. You must be at least a little curious about us. Sparing what must be a very brief period of time to talk is far easier than trying to pull the thoughts from the blood directly."

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Zero eyes widen slightly as he saw Rin fall to the ground. His eyes then narrowed as he glaced towards the attacker. Zero blood started to boil and run fast as the image of the female transferred through his mind. This was not good at all and Zero knew he need to act quick before she attack. But before he could make a move, Forth made his. "Since you've graced us with a personal meeting I would hope you wouldn't be opposed to sparing a moment from killing us to perhaps converse some. We are the two highest ranking agents currently operating in the field after all. You must be at least a little curious about us. Sparing what must be a very brief period of time to talk is far easier than trying to pull the thoughts from the blood directly." Zero sighed as he then looked toward the sky. “Better safe then sorry, right?” He mumbles to him self.

As he spoke those words, the sky started to get dark as black clouds rolled in from no were. Thunder could be heard when a lightning bold shot down at the place Zero was at. As the flash of light was gone, so was Zero. He was now standing in front of Queen in his calm fighting pose. He held the middle ring of his yo-yo around his right arm as he held the yo-yo In his right. With lightning coming off of Zero body Zero lets out a soft sigh once more before facing the female. “Kanmuru!” A lighting circle then moves around Zero and Queen. Anything that enters the circle Zero will be able to reacted fast to defend and/or attack.

“Queen? I don’t think she is the talking type. She is are main target!" Zero then glaces to Queen to as Zero knew that this wasn’t going to be easy. He then glaces back at the female, now awaiting her response. Let it be to talk or to fight. Zero was ready!

"Talk? I don't play with my food. It's bad manners." She tilted her face with an exasperated expression. The atmosphere was silent for a second as her lower torso started to bulge with multiple contours and colors, slowly becoming protruding tentacles that were red: the length of a long arm pole and about half a human wide each.

Her tentacles extended as she tried to attack the Queen mercilessly, slamming her tentacle on his puny stature. Suddenly, a burst of light from a circle around them electrocuted one of her tentacles until it became limp. That didn't stop Serah though: she seemed to have no mentality or thought process to her attack. Her kagune simply regenerated, breaking through the seal after 7 of her tentacles became fried and regenerated immediately after.

Not to her surprise he easily dodged her combos, unscathed. She leapt once more this time aiming at Zero again with a giant leap forward, hoping to pierce him directly with her delicate hands. The ground around her turned wispy with smoke and was scorched in reaction to her reflexes. Her tentacles began to move a different direction and attempted to pierce Forth in half. She back-flipped as she caught herself with her left palm from the fall backwards. From a snarky yoyo hit from Zero, she seemed to regain her judgment and senses itself. She retracted herself from the seemingly overwhelming odds retrieving Rina's limp corpse from the ground beside the skirmish and began to execute the actual parts of her scheme.

She waited, and anticipated what the other two were going to do, and decided that even her the queen of vampires could not fight in such a weakened form. She broke the floor beneath her, breaking 4 layers of limestone, concrete, and even diamond, as a tomb with a secure lid decorated with a flower insignia was raised from the Earth itself. She used her kagune to pry off the lid as a staircase was revealed within the darkness. Steps could be heard from it, as if someone was ascending it as a silhouette emerged from the cloud of debris.

Forth

He sighed and frowned.

"There's so little civility to murder these days."

He stepped back and watched her try and fail to get at him. Like a wild dog she kept on him, not at all considering King was also on the attack. Forth had always thought little of him but he still had his uses. He was mechanically faster and trained for fighting simple enemies. For ten percent of the job he was superior in performance. For the rest the Magician's Alliance had put their faith in the queen. He didn't care what they wanted of him though. They thought they could control him and in some senses they were right. Their control was only good as far as their commands could foresee.

He knew she was the queen of the vampires, that much was made known. Who she was though was what he wanted to know. Corpses weren't the easiest sources of information after all. After a brief trade of attacks between the vampire queen and King the target smashed open the surprisingly expensive ground to reveal a secret tunnel. It seemed she was bringing in reinforcements to help her enforce the 'trap' part of the actual trap. What interested him however was the fact that she bothered to grab Rina's body. This action alone was more interesting than the entirety of the confrontation had been.


Forth had not been completely idle throughout the fight however. He had reached into his suitcase and retrieved three specialized grenades along with a couple regular ones just in case. The specialized grenades were designed to release a cloud of his Vampiric Retribution Powder when they exploded, covering everything in a wide radius with this dust which would burn continuously upon coming into contact with a vampire. In addition he had also loaded his shotgun with a special round, buckshot mixed with VR* Powder. When fired these rounds would do the same damage as regular buckshot with the added bonus of coating every shot with VR Powder for extra damage. If that wasn't enough the shots also put out a lot of excess VR Powder as well, covering targets in a slightly narrow cone in front of him with it.

Now it was time to put his plan into effect. He took one of the specialized grenades in his hand and pocketed the rest. Pulling the pin on the VR Powder grenade he tossed it right at the entrance of the coffin near where the vampire queen stood. Standing in position he then aimed his shotgun down the length of the staircase, timing his shot to go off with the explosion. His plan was simply enough to deny the woman a direction to dodge that wouldn't place her in direct danger.

If she stood still she'd get hit with the grenade's blast and set ablaze with a fire that would only burn hotter in proportion to the power of the vampiric essence. If she dodged into the stairway she'd take a direct blast from his shotgun which would put buckshot coated in VR Powder directly under her skin, the perfect place for an endlessly burning powder to stay in. If she dodged away from the coffin altogether then it would put her much closer to Zero, setting her up in an excellent position for a continued attack from him.


While he had no reservation towards shooting the queen of vampires dead right then, especially given her dim and especially childish behavior, the purpose of this maneuver of his was not specifically to kill her. What he was trying to do was to force her to drop Rina's body. If he could separate the body from her then his next shot was going right into Rina's head. There had to be a reason she wanted to retreat with the body in tow and he was determined to force her hand, giving him and King an advantage which he definitely wanted. After all, there was another coming up from the stairs and he was not keen on the possibility of having to reveal more of his powers than he wanted anyone to know.

Secrets were valuable after all. He wanted to find them, not reveal them to others.

(*-Vampiric Retribution Powder)

There wasn't much that would make her go through the trouble of bringing him back. Whatever the reason was, it must be something very important for the queen to summon one of her elite guard. Maybe he wasn't the only guard she summoned, he would have to wait to be sure. He walked stoically up the large set of stairs towards a small light at the top. There was a chance his queen also summoned Claire and if that was the case Sora feared for whoever the enemy was. There wasn't much that could stand against the Blue knight, Lightning fast Claire and the queen of the vampire's herself. He felt wrath at his hip, waiting to be unleashed on his queen's enemies. He spoke to his sword, attempting to calm it down a bit before it's thirst for blood was too great. He closed his eyes and focused, going into something like a trance. He threw his senses out like a web, tendrils everywhere so he could see what he would be popping up into. He could see his queen as well as her two enemies, which didn't seem like much at first glance. If she only had two enemies the she wouldn't be needing both him and Claire. That made him slightly sad that he wouldn't be able to see his old friend but he wasn't going to let that get to him. These enemies mustn't be weak if the queen needed his presence so he took another moment to assess the situation. He saw another form lying unconscious in the queen's arms. He linked a tendril to the queen's consciousness and he knew exactly what she wanted him to do. He also noticed the two enemies and where they were positioned relative to the queen. He saw that one was about to throw a grenade as well as had a gun out, attempting to force Serah either into the other enemy or into the waiting gun's range. Sora was now close to the top and he knew just what needed to be done.

As he took his last step out of the staircase, he pushed off the ground with his full strength, causing him to go spiraling forward in the blink of an eye. He grabbed the grenade mid air and threw it far into the back corner of the room. He quickly altered his fall in just the right way and drew his blade to smash away the freshly fired shell. Sora didn't bother to look back, knowing his queen would take care of the rest of the fight while he did what she called him to do in the first place. He took Rina from Sarah's arms and set her down on the floor. As he spoke a few words under his breath he could hear the queen fighting only feet beside him holding back both of her formidable foes. As he spoke his last words of condolences, he began going to work. He quickly and efficiently began removing the girls eyes, doing as his queen commands wasn't something he liked, but he knew nothing else. As the two enemies fighting Sarah tried their hardest to get past her, they could see somewhat what was happening. That only caused them to fight harder almost getting to Sora multiple times, only to be sent flying back by the queen. He wasn't sure how long Sarah could keep it up, but he was almost done and once his task was complete they would be able to escape. He had both eyes removed and He began to transfer them into his own, one at a time. It took a moment before he was able to see again and once he did all he could see was different shades of purple. It would take him years to get adjusted to how the eyes power worked, but the color would come back to normal within minutes. As the purple slowly shifted from his eyes, he could see that his queen was slightly worse for wear. He picked up Rina's body and shifted her over his shoulder, waiting for his queen's next order. He pulled up wrath in his right arm, waiting for what was to come next.