Falling for Ruka

Chapter 12: Ruka

*Author’s Note:  This chapter should hopefully explain a little more about what happened.  Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don’t own Vampire Knight.

 

             I woke up to the sound of water sloshing in time with footsteps.  My eyes seemed to be glued shut as I attempted to open them.  Finally managing to lift the heavy things, I stared groggily up into the face of my mother.

            “Ruka! Oh Ruka, you’re awake!” she cried, dropping the glass of water she had been carrying to throw her arms around me.  I started as the glass shattered on the wood floor. 

            “What…what’s going on?”  I asked, trying to remember how exactly I had gotten here. 

            “Ruka…do you remember anything?”  my mother asked me carefully.

            “I…” my voice trailed off as I tried to remember what my mind was so reluctant to recall. 

            “Best to take it easy, dear.  You have been unconscious for three nights,”  she told me quietly.

            “Three…nights?”  I repeated, stunned.  I looked at my body, trying to look for any signs of sickness or injury that would justify this, but there was nothing there. 

            “Your skin has healed quite nicely, and your hair is growing back as well,” my mother told me reassuringly.  “But the burns…they were quite…severe…”

            The burns?  That meant—

            Fire. 

            My memory came rushing back in a torrent as if a dam in my mind had been cracked.  The night of Hanabusa’s Ketsueki Yudo and Kaname’s mission for the three of us, leaving the party without permission and making our way to the town where the hunter’s society was, about two hours by foot for a vampire away from where our homes were, then waiting for Shiroma to come out of the society.

            And then the level E’s had attacked us.  Hanabusa had fought them and failed, and then seemingly out of nowhere flames had sprung up, consuming the level E’s but somehow avoiding me for the most part.  I remembered screaming in surprise more than fear as the level E’s melted around me.  Akatsuki had turned to me, and that was when I saw it.  He was completely surrounded by the flames, but it was as if he was immune to them as he stood there looking completely blank yet completely unharmed. 

            In a flash of instinct I had realized that the flames were his doing.  I had to stop him before the entire town was burned down, including the society with the changed records. 

            After that my memories had become foggy as I inhaled the smoke and the fumes, but I remembered grabbing Hanabusa and being burned yet again.  What had happened after that?

            “What is it Ruka?  Do you remember something?” my mother asked me urgently, laying a hand on my cheek. 

            As I was about to tell her, something stopped me.  I didn’t know how much I should tell her.  After all, our mission had been a secret.  I needed to gauge how much she knew first, I decided.

            “Did you…find me somewhere?” I prompted, hoping she would tell me.

            “No…your father and I…we realized you were missing from your cousin’s party, and we immediately sent out the servants to find you.  As they searched, we went to the mansion in order to make sure that you weren’t home.  We waited for you for many hours, and then…young Lord Kain appeared at our door, carrying you.  You were badly burned, and he looked as if he was about to break down, telling us that he had burned you.  We brought you here and you’ve been asleep for three nights now,” she told me the story.