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The Scarlet Hunter	By : naturechild02 Category: +S to Z > Vampire Hunter D Views: 2103 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own rights to Vampire Hunter D or any of Hideyuki Kikuchi's works. I do not make any profit/monies from this story. This a fanfic written merely for the enjoyment of myself and others.

Chapter List
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She only said one thing to him: “Take us to my family.”

He did not question her. He carried her, still clutching the stillborn child, out to his waiting horse and they rode away. Their ride was silent. Neither spoke or cried: they were still numb. It was as if the truth had not really sunk in for D. His heart was a stone right now and must remain so for Katie’s sake. He could not lose her too though he already felt that she was beyond his reach. She looked at him as she would a stranger, her eyes boring right through him. She never asked to stop and he never thought to as they drove the poor horse on and on toward Haven.

Haven: the magnet of her suffering.

When they reached the graveyard it was dusk the next day. Katie half fell off the horse from exhaustion but would not let D help her. He followed her to a spot beside her brother’s grave and she wordlessly handed him the child. As he stood watching her dig the grave with her bare hands, the weight of it all finally struck him. This was their son. He was holding their dead son and the pain was overwhelming. The baby was so tiny, premature even for a dhampir. And so cold. He fell to his knees as he realized he had wanted to know him. He had wanted to be a father.

Katie finished the small hole and took the child from him. With hands covered in brown soil and blood, she placed the bundle in the shallow grave and solemnly covered it with dirt, her face as lifeless as the child’s body. Then she lay on the grave and sobbed quietly. But soon her sobbing became wailing and then she was screaming her pain to the heavens; her heart broken. It was a state he had never expected to see her in. D realized he was crying too. The strongest dhampir in the world; the cold bastard that no one could best was crying red tears. He wanted to scream as well but he knew if he started, he would never stop. The boy had looked just like her; just like his beautiful mother. And yet he had his father’s pointed nose and dark hair. D couldn’t get the face out of his mind. And it was all his fault. He hadn’t gotten there in time. Hell, he never should have left her to begin with. He saw Katherine starting to rip her hair out and dragged her into his arms. She resisted at first but soon clutched his chest and bawled. Neither spoke or moved for a long time.

They spent the next week in the ruins of Sebastian’s castle. Katherine would not eat or even change her clothes though he did convince her to wade into a stream to wash some of the blood off of herself. Even so, by the end of the week she was completely healed and her malnourished body looked as though she had never been pregnant. The thought made D shiver. He finally asked her what had happened and when she told him (in a whisper and with many pauses to sob) he wished for a moment Pseudo was still alive so he could kill him again.

“It is my fault, I tried to escape…”

“Don’t,” he took her shoulders and stared into her eyes. They were a grayish color now, all the life and sparkle gone. “You were trying to protect you both. If you start to blame yourself, it will tear you apart. Blame me instead, I should have been there. I should have stayed even though you didn’t want me to. Blame me, hate me, but don’t punish yourself like this.” She saw that he was serious. But she still felt that the fault was her own.

“Oh D,” she wrapped her arms around his neck as they sat by the stream. She still smelled of dirt and horses but she was not the same girl he had met long ago. He could not help but feel responsible for all that had happened to her in the last few years. But he wanted to make her pain stop. He wanted to heal her somehow. He wanted to see her smile again. He knew he was being selfish but he still wanted to be by her side. ”Perhaps,” she whispered, “it is for the best. Such a child had no chance in this world.” He took her chin in his hands, careful not to break her jaw in his quiet fury.

“Don’t.” he growled. Fresh tears spilled down her cheeks but her face was blank, emotionless. This final blow to Katherine’s heart had been too much. She could not handle this pain, she was giving up and her resigned look tortured his soul. If they had never met, if he had never loved her… would she be suffering so?

The happy youth he had known was gone forever: here sat an empty shell of a woman. The blame lay with him. He had ruined her. Loving her had torn her life apart. What could she do now? Where could she go to run from the pain?

He awoke and she was gone. She had somehow snuck away while he slept. The evening was too beautiful. A slight breeze played through the trees, making their branches dance; taunting him. The setting sun was a glorious fireball. Mother Nature seemed to be reveling in his misery. He stood and looked around to find his horse gone as well. She had taken it. “Where did you go, my love?” he questioned the silence around him. Then he saw the note. A rough piece of paper was pinned to a tree where his horse had been last. He snatched it away impatiently.

I am sorry to leave you like this my love. I cannot bear to see you right now is all. I do not know what I should do anymore; I only know I must do it alone. This is a pain you cannot understand and I do not wish to bring you down with me. Be safe and remember the time we shared.

Katherine

“Foolish woman,” he crumpled the paper in his fist, “I understand your pain more than you know. I wanted to love that child. He was a part of me too.” He knew what the parasite living in his body (who had been unusually quiet this week) was thinking: I told you so.

“You were right all along. I should never have met her. Then perhaps she’d be happy.”

“What did she once tell you about loving someone even if it’s for a short time? Do you regret the happiness you had with her? Do you regret making her happy?”

“None of it matters now. I can never forgive myself for this. I bring death with me when I see her: everyone she’s loved has died since we met. She is better off without me; I’m a curse to her.”

Time passed and D traveled alone. He saw the ocean and the desert, he had many adventures all his own. He did his best not to think about his lost family but sometimes it was difficult. When he saw a rainbow hanging over the clouds his mind’s eye saw her riding a brown mare, her red hair flying behind her, arms extended toward the sky. He would smile and remember her beautiful, happy face. She had changed him. He realized that now. When he was in tight situations and he felt more desperate than ever, he had only to think of her and how she had taught him to love this world and to really see all the beauty it possessed. He no longer wished they had never met, though he often wondered how she was.

The Scarlet Hunter never resurfaced. Had she retired back to her house in Carrillo? He doubted it; he had passed through twice and not felt her presence there. Though sometimes he swore he sensed her a few times passing through the mountains but he never investigated: she wanted to be left alone.

He passed Haven once more to visit the graves. He was surprised to find a headstone over the grave of the child. So she had returned; he’d assumed it would be too painful for her. The engraving was short and without detail but it was enough to bring on a fresh wave of sorrow and regret he had been repressing for far too long.

It read:

Here lies the infant child of

Katherine and D

And beside the headstone, already beginning to show signs of rust was her sword, plunged into the root of the tree overshadowing the graves. That was the sign he had been looking for. The Scarlet Hunter really was dead. She had died the morning she found her brother’s body even if she didn’t fully realize it. But perhaps, somewhere, Katherine Clemmons was still alive and well. Maybe she was no longer the girl of his memories: always smiling even in battle; ever observant of the small beauties of the world; able to make his breath catch with one look from her dazzling blue eyes. But she was out there somewhere and perhaps, someday, he would see her again.

Until then, he was still a Vampire Hunter and his road led ever forward into the unknown.
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The Scarlet Hunter