Black Blood (SAO fanfic w/ Soul Eater aspects)

My saving grace

Katherine's POV
The warm body next to mine wakes me from my sleep. I open my eyes to see who it is only to quickly close them again. The brightness of the lights overhead blinded me. I open them again, slower this time as to let them adjust, and see Max's teal hair and blue body armor. His arm strewn over my side and me cuddled into his chest. "You awake?" he asks. I jump, startled by the fact that he has been awake this entire time. "Yeah. I'm awake," I say. I sit up and stretch my arms. "How long was I out?" I ask. "A few hours. Rocky says that you were talking to them then went to sleep suddenly then started shaking and gripping the sofa and your arms. I was awake for the last part of that, but when you started screaming I grabbed you and you started mumbling things and drifted off. You scared me so much. First you fight without a weapon against a monster that almost one-shot me, not only one but three, by yourself, and then you have a breakdown when I come to," Max says. "Sorry," I say. He sits up and pulls me into his arms. "It's ok Teddy. Just calm down. I'm here for you," he says, comforting me with his words. "C'mon. I'm sure the others are really confused," I say. "Actually they heard you screaming from the hallway and saw that whole part, but yeah. We are all really confused," he says. I grab his hand and lead him into the living room. Everyone sits talking about different things. The conversation stops abruptly as we enter the room. "Would you care to explain what happened?" Asuna asks. "The demon-sword found one of my flaws. This isn't going to stop guys. If I exert myself too much it will happen again, but there is nothing we can do to change that," I say. "I have a question. What were those three sword skills you used earlier?" Kirito asks. "The first was Demon Savior. This is where I go as a player and heal the HP of a player of choice. I can only do this so many times. One of the things about the demon sword is that is is made out of her blood. Any attack she uses will use her blood. With her sword in hand, the connection is strong, but if I'm in human form somewhere else the connection is lost. It isn't all that much power, but if you slit your wrist at such a low level of power then it is a problem. The blood works kinda like mana in magic games. You only have so much, but as you level up you can get more. Same thing. The second one was Blood Bender. Each drop of her blood is a weapon that can be used against an enemy. It uses the same concept as Bloody Needle, controlling the blood and impaling an enemy, but you can control the blood in different ways. You can do just about anything with it. Resonating Radar uses the mapping system. It sends your senses into overdrive. You can sense the presence of players up to a hundred meters away," Rocky says. "Nice. Now I have three more to work with. I should probably practice them some," I say. Rocky nods.
"Hey Yui," Asuna says. "Yeah?" Yui replies, the confusion on her face extremely noticeable. "Where are your parents?" Asuna finishes. "I don't have any. I'm like Rocky. I'm an AI. I wish that I had somebody to love me like Rocky has," Yui says. Kirito and Asuna share a look. "You want to be our daughter? Gosh that sounded much weirder than I expected it to," Kirito says. "Yes!" Yui says, her smile spreading across her face and her arms wrapping around the two of them. "You know what the best thing is to me?" I ask. "What?" Asuna replies. "We both have kids and we aren't even by the game's standards married," I say. Asuna giggles. "Speaking of that, why don't we get married?" Kirito says, grabbing Asuna's hand. Tears of joy form in her eyes. "Yes!" She cries, flinging her arms around him. I glance at Max, wondering if he is going to ask me, but he stays silent. I squeeze his hand and lean against his side, letting his strong frame hold me up. He releases my hand and throws his arm over my shoulders squeezing me to him. "Hey Teddy," he whispers. "Yeah?" I ask. "Do you wanna get married?" he asks. I nod my head into his shoulder. "Hey Kirito!" Max says, "Why don't we all go ring shopping tomorrow and look for a new condo?" "Sounds like a plan!" he replies, grinning from ear to ear. "Why don't we just keep the condo we have?" Yui asks, "There are four rooms. Enough for us all!" "She makes a good point. Why don't we just look around the town and go from there?" Asuna says. "Sounds good!" I say, "I'm going to sleep. It's been a long day." "Ok. Let's get up at around eight tomorrow?" Asuna asks. "Sounds good to me. I'm sure Teddy will be up long before that," Max says. "I'll tell Klein that we won't be there tomorrow," Kirito says, pulling up his menu to send the message. I stand up straight and turn to walk toward our room when Max grabs my hand. I turn to look at him and he gestures for me to continue. I grasp his hand and tug him along with me.
I jump onto the bed and unequip my armor. "It's been a long and hard day. No scratch that. A long and hard couple of days," I say, closing my eyes. I run my hand over my t-shirt and shorts wishing I had bought a blanket at the shop yesterday. A soft heap of cloth lands over my legs. I crack open my eyes to see a wool blanket with a mixture of two colors, the color of my hair and the color of my eyes. "Where did you get this?" I ask. "I found it at a shop two weeks ago. The shopkeeper gave me a discount because it matched my hair and eyes. Little did he know that it matched yours too," Max says. I look up at him. His black t-shirt clings to his body, a perfect fit, like everything else here. "You know what?" he asks. "Hmmmm?" I reply, letting the drowsiness begin to pull me under. "I really don't know all that about you, but I feel this connection with you. It's almost like I could tell you my worst secrets and you'd understand. Like you are like me," he says. I force my eyes open. "What exactly is like you?" I ask. "A freak," he whispers. I sit up quickly. He glances at me, wonder apparent in his eyes. "What did you just say?" I ask. "I said I'm a freak!" he says, louder than before. "Max I'm beginning to think that you understand me more than I understand myself. I'm a freak too," I say. A silence follows, but Max breaks it. "You want to talk about it?" he asks. I shudder, thinking about the horrible incident earlier. "You first," I say. "Ok. I was born to a family that looked perfect, but my dad had a deep secret. He was a part of this underground ring of horrible people who used their first-borns to bargain with. He would get things by selling my time. A certain allotted amount of time was given for each thing they gave him. I got tired of being used for various things. Sometimes there were people who just had me clean things or some other crap, but there were a lot of people who were horrible, they beat us to pulps. I remember one time my dad and this other guy made a deal with someone else. They both got something and the guy who they made the deal with got me and the other guy's daughter for two whole days. When they came at me, she was up like a shot. You know what she said. She said..." he says. "'Hurt him and I'll hurt you ten times worse than anything you've ever seen!'" I finish. He looks up at me astounded. "But he did it anyway. So the girl used something you've never seen before. She shot ice out of her fingertips and told you you could do the same, but the guy got back on track quick. He hit her and she fought back, but couldn't overpower him. So you did something you swore afterwords to never do again. You used the power you never knew you had. Together, you killed the man. Afterwards, when your fathers came to pick you up and saw what you did the girl snapped. She killed her father, froze him solid. She was in tears, shouting apologies to the skies by the time your father grabbed her. He whispered something in her ear and you never knew what it was, but I tell you he said,'You're mine now.' You knocked him away from her. He landed wrong and died. The police found you the next day. They said that it was self defense. Somebody who knew hid the magic. You never saw her again," I finish,"Right Rolly?" "Katherine?" he breathes quietly, scared of the memories,"That's what you saw. That is what you remembered earlier!" "Not only that, but the bullies. You know my own mom is terrified of me. She's scared I'll snap and kill her. I'm not that kind of person. I knew you looked familiar when I first saw your real self that day. I never imagined it was actually you," I say. I lay down, letting all of this new information work it's way into my brain. After all the searching I did, I found the boy on accident in a death game. "Thank you," he whispers. "For what Max? For teaching you what we are? For killing that guy? Killing my dad? Killing your dad?" I ask, my voice louder than I expected. "No. Thank you for saving me. I never would've been able to stand up to them without you," he replies. He lays his head next to mine on the pillow. "Well at least now I know why I was drawn to you that day. It was because you saved me and have continued to save me," he says, kissing me softly on the nose. His breathing evens out and I open my eyes to look at his sleeping form. Max was that little boy who hid in the corner, so afraid of the guy who I took care of in a second. He was so much stronger. I rest my hand on his cheek, softly stroking down the side of his face. "Your welcome," I whisper before letting sleep engulf me.