Wandering during the night usually meant running into more interesting or questionable individuals, depending on where you were hanging around.
This particular person is...actually so removed from suspicious, that could be considered suspicious by itself. She's a very pretty young woman, seemingly by herself despite the countless times people try to greet her only to have unusually short conversations before she says her goodbyes and moves on.
Long, white hair, striking blue eyes, the hint of music notes and flower petals tattooed poking into view from her shoulder up to her neck, and the occasional pretty, friendly smile that curls her otherwise neutral, straight lips...
"I'm as far past the point of saving as my ability to save anyone else is. The only thing you could possibly do to help a monster like me, is..."
Her age is unknown precisely, though ranges somewhere in the three digits. She hasn't kept track, at some point she stopped, realizing all it did was cause her more grief.
While boasting the usual advantages of a vampire, Kanade's best strengths seem to lie in the more illusionary aspects. Altering the mind and memory, causing illusions using auditory or visual hallucination, and attempts to manipulate the will. Ironically, manipulation is the skill she detests having the most, and when she has a choice in the matter is avoidant of it.
Consequently, when someone finds out what she can do through eye contact, eye contact becomes something she can rarely bring herself to do, due to assuming she can't be trusted with it.
While as physically capable as most vampires, she dislikes physical violence, and normally never resorts to it.
She's actually poorly disciplined with restraint and control over herself, but interestingly does whatever she can to avoid becoming violent at others, often resulting in other odd behaviors instead.
She's strange. She's purposeless and normally quite harmless, yet finds herself plagued more often than not by emotional instability and rather unreasonable attempts at making enemies in the places she ends up at, whether it's intentional or not. But if there's a goal she has set for behaving so erratically and refusing to let most see who the actual Kanade Yoisaki is, it isn't one she shares so easily with just anyone. If she's telling you, she must think pretty highly of your ability to help her reach it.
The sleek, dark violin rested on the grass on her other side. Turned away from it, Kanade instead gave her attention to the young woman next to her. This is...not exactly the purpose she wanted to give playing music for others, if she's being honest. Typical, that yet another thing she tried to hold close to her chest was being emptied out and used in a way that made it...pointless.
Despite those thoughts, sharp and bright blue eyes lock with the woman's hazel ones, and slender, gentle fingers brush softly against her cheek, gliding back to brush brown hair out of her face.
"So you liked it, hm?"
"Y-yes! It was so beautiful..."
"Oh? I'm flattered. This violin's not really something I pick up too often. I do prefer my piano back home."
"Ohh, I'm sure whatever you play on that must be incredible!"
"Maybe you can hear it sometime." She'd never hear it. Not if Kanade could help it. This woman would never be anywhere near her home. After today, she won't have anything to do with her at all.
Shame...she remembered distantly, a time when people genuinely meant when they said that, and when she liked hearing it. That her playing was beautiful. It was one of the last human thoughts she still remembered having.
The way the young woman's eyes refused to look anywhere else but at her own, Kanade knew well that her lure had worked. It was ironic, honestly. Even back then, people passively remarked that even though she lived with such bad habits, she was a pretty girl. Pretty eyes. Nice skin. Pretty, long hair that almost seemed to take care of itself. She never believed any of that. Now, centuries later living life as a broken visage of that girl, she not only knew that it seemed to be true, but she learned how to weaponize it.
She found it disgusting.
With a glimmer of red in her eyes, Kanade keeps the girl's stare, smiling calmly as her hand moves down slowly, her fingertips ghosting down the girl's neck. There was the slightest tremble in her touch--she cursed herself for letting her hunger stay that long. She didn't like any process of it. She didn't like giving into it. She didn't really have a choice. It was either feed it, or let it drive her completely. This...wasn't one of those times when she forgot the consequences of making the wrong choice.
The young woman had already fallen eerily silent. Kanade studied her face and the empty, distant look in her eyes. At least this power of hers made this easier. She didn't have to fight people. She didn't have to hold them down or hear them cry. Most of the time, anyway.
The only way she could describe how she felt when pulling herself closer to the woman next to her and dipping her head lower was...disconnected. Intentional and disgusted. Her arm wrapped supportively around the other woman's midsection as her lengthy fangs dig against the side of her neck, and pierce through.
The rest of her is trembling now, too. She wished she didn't notice. There's an urgency in her subtle movements and the way her arm held her victim closer--possessively. It feels like her mind is steering its own way. Like her hands were on the wheels, but she could already feel the phantom pulls going anywhere but where she directed them to.
This is too much disconnection. This is not good.
Inside looking out. That's how this always felt. A worse punishment than she's ever been dealt in her living, human life. Trapped behind the window of those deceptive, deep eyes, she watched time and time again while those hands chose their victims, and her soft voice delivered false promise of safety, adoration, love--things she didn't even know about herself. You can't promise things you never believed you had yourself in the first place--otherwise, how did you even know what they felt like? How are you supposed to believe that's truly how the other felt about your presence?
The pulse in her ears is slower. It isn't her own. She didn't have one. How long has she been feeding? Did it even matter? No, it definitely did. But if she kept going...what difference did it make?
Life or death makes all the difference. That was not a choice that she made for someone else. She couldn't keep doing this, over and over again. With a grunt and soft whine, Kanade forced herself away, arm slipping away from the young woman while her other hand shoves her by the chest. Collapsing onto her back, the woman was out cold now, but she wasn't...dead, at least. Her heart was still beating, barely.
Slow, steady rhythm. That pulse beats in her ears--it was hypnotizing, just like her eyes could be to others. With a line of blood still trickling from her lips, she leaned closer to the young woman, hand reaching out reluctantly for the body. It would be easy now, wouldn't it? It wouldn't be as enjoyable, no, but in the end she'd still got what she needed.
She already has what she needs.
She could take more though. She was strong enough, and there was nothing to stop her.
Her hand trembled in the air, not having moved at all this entire time. Forcing it lower, Kanade's lips pulled into a scowl as her hand suddenly moved like a blur. Into a pocket. Over her leg. The next thing that jostles her senses is the hard thump of her fist against her leg, and a brief, sharp sensation of pain firing through the nerves of her thigh.
"Ah!" Gasping, Kanade blinked, pulling herself back away from the woman on the ground, her fingers still clasped firmly around the knife in her thigh. With a sharp breath, she pulled it back out with the same urgency that she had pushed with and dropped it onto the ground, bringing her hands to her face and catching her quick breaths. Fingers dug through her hair for a moment, the small vampire struggling to pull herself back down the Earth as she then frantically wiped the blood from her mouth.
Trembling, she raised her head and looked at the woman nearby, still unconscious, still...alive. That heartbeat was driving her crazy. Swallowing, a shaky hand pulls white, silky gloves from her other pocket as she fumbled to pull them on. Keeping her gaze away from the woman's face or neck, she searched for a phone and pulled it from a front pocket, looking it over for a moment before working to get into it.
She rolls her eyes a little bit. Biometrics are hardly useful when you've fallen unconscious with your device on you. Pressing one of the woman's fingers to the screen, the phone allows her access and Kanade works on autopilot.
"...hello? I need an ambulance."
She was so tired of this.
She doesn't even pay attention anymore as she relays the location and hangs up. Carefully putting the phone back, she tries to move the woman so she would at least be a bit more comfortable, before getting up to collect her instrument and knife, already ignorant of the slight ache in her leg.
Anywhere away from this thumping in her ears was better than here.
Honestly I think this particular Kanade does actually still hurt herself, but you wouldn't be able to tell because she heals from it pretty quickly and she avoids using methods that would actually damage her in any way that matters.
