A/N: Recently, I have been taking up a lot of interest in Rosario +
Vampire and Final Fantasy XIII. My favorite character from the game is Hope, and I have been reading a LOT of Rosario + Vampire crossover fanfictions (because those are some of the most decent ones I've read so far) and decided to go with one of my own.

*I don't own anything used in this story, all credit shall go to their respectful creators*

Summary: Anyway, this is an AU story takes place after the fall of Cocoon, Orphan, and the ending of the L'Cie and crystal stasis. Serah is awake from her crystal stasis and married to Snow now. Fang and Vanille are not in crystal stasis and are kicking it in somewhere in the wilds of Gran Pulse. Lightning and the gang have lost their L'Cie brands for good…or have they?

Hope Estheim is 15 and ready to enter high school, but what would happen if he found a flyer and application for Yokai Academy? Read onward to find out!

… … …

Hope plus Vampire

Chapter 1: 15th birthdays plus Yokai Academy

9:45am

A young woman with pink hair in a side ponytail walked up the stairs toward a room and opened it slowly. This young woman's name was Serah Farron, the younger sister of Lightning, whom has just recently married a blonde named Snow Villiers and woke up from crystal stasis. Today, she was particularly cheerful, and it was for a particularly young orphan named Hope Estheim.

With a smile that could brighten a person's day on her face, she knocked lightly on the door to Hope's room and opened it to walk in. Upon entering the room, her smile widened at the sight before her. Sleeping peacefully underneath twisted covers was a young pale boy with short silver hair.

Giggling, she walked up to the curtains and opened them up to let the bright morning sun flood into the room. The light was enough to cause the boy to groan and stir awake. He was a very light sleeper, especially after the hectic journey to fulfill his Focus through Gran Pulse. He had only been on it for the past year-and-a-half. Now that all that is over and life is once again peaceful for once, he could relax and sleep peacefully.

Times were hard now that his parents are both dead. Nora Estheim, his mother, died tragically while falling from a debris, which he now understood why and how that happened. His father was killed sometime during the fall of Cocoon and was lost. He had been stricken, no doubt, but the ones to pull him out of his stupor had been his friends, especially Lightning.

Without Lightning around, he'd probably be dead somewhere, or extremely lost. She had just recently adopted him into her family as a result of their bonding time together in Gran Pulse. Over the course of the journey, he had grown to love her as a mother-sister figure. And, although she doesn't usually show it, she loves him just as much.

"Good morning! Hope, it's time to wake up!" Hope's eyes fluttered open and were a bit unfocused due to the sudden light that struck his sensitive eyelids.

Hope yawned and stretched out so he can get the gears in his limbs to move for the day.

"Ah! Morning, Serah!" he smiled gently as he replied.

"Happy birthday, Hope!" Serah exclaimed and embraced the younger boy.

"Thank you, Serah!" Hope said.

"Let's go downstairs for breakfast. Everyone wants to see you before going to work." Serah said and left the room to allow Hope to get dressed and meet her downstairs.

Downstairs, he was met with a chorus of 'Happy birthday, Hope!' He was grateful that there are people in his life that he can rely on, and in return they remember little things such as birthdays. Lightning approached Hope and embraced him, much like the one that Serah gave, but stronger and tighter.

"You're fifteen years old already, huh?" Light grinned.

"Yeah, I'm an old man now, huh?" Hope joked, and everyone laughed, including Light.

Vanille and Fang walked up to Hope next.

"You sure grew up in the little time we knew each other." Fang said more than asked. She smirked and pulled on Hope's cheeks so they stung a little, much like how a granny would treat her grandson, but Fang was not a granny. "You're so old now!"

"Faaaang, don't tease him!" Vanille complained, much to Hope's relief. "That's my job!"

"Did you grow taller, Hope?" Vanille asked after Fang let go of his cheeks, which were red and throbbing from Fang's grip.

"Uh…I don't know." Hope stood to face Vanille did forehead measurements.

"Ah! You're taller than me now!" Vanille exclaimed joyfully. "I'm 161cm, how tall are you now?"

"Um, 164? I haven't seen you for months, but I never noticed until now." He said. Finally! I'm taller than a girl now! He thought gleefully.

"Really? I never noticed." came Fang's remark.

"That's 'cause you're tall-ER!" Hope pouted at their gap in height.

"Yo, kiddo, can we join in?" Sazh, the black man of the group joined in to shake Hope's hand, along with his son, Dajh.

"Happy birthday, Hope!" the little six-year-old exclaimed.

"Oh, thank you, Dajh." Hope smiled and ruffled the little boy's hair.

Just then, Snow came in and took Hope by the wrist and led him gently out of the room and to the corner near the coat closet. He had a serious look on his face, something uncharacteristic about the normally cheerful man he was. Hope was scared.

"So, you think you're ready for the outside world, huh?" he said.

"Yeah, of course I'm ready." Hope said. "I've been with you guys out in the wilds of Gran Pulse for the past year. Why wouldn't I be ready?"

"I'm not talking about quests or the L'Cie part." Snow said. "I'm talking about your ascension into adulthood. Fifteen is the age where boys transcend into men, and then they start with high school, then girls, then other stuff, you know what I mean."

Hope was confused for a moment, but realized exactly what the big man was saying. He implied that Hope will be starting high school, yes. He would be getting a girlfriend soon, probably. Lastly, he might get into other stuff, meaning alcohol, drugs, sex, etc. Hope shrugged those last bits away, thinking he'd been responsible until this point. He was extremely smart and knew what he was doing.

"I know that, Snow." Hope grinned.

Now, Snow's face broke into a wide ear-to-ear grin that showed mischief.

"Hey, what's with the seriousness here?" Snow asked rhetorically.

"Huh?"

Snow placed a hand on the silveret's shoulder.

"Girls your age start to notice you for what you've got. Why, when I first started high school, I had girls from all over flocking to me like sheep to a wolf, a good, sneaky one." He bragged, but it was not all that impossible to picture him as really popular. "But, that's when I met the one, the only Serah Farron, my wife." He finished.

"So, you're implying that I'll be as popular as you, and then I'll find my future wife?"

"No, I'm not saying that should be, but that you could be. It's your life, and how you decide to go along about it." Snow said. "But, if you find any cute girls, introduce us to them, okay?"

"Uh, o-okay." Hope blushed.

"Hope, breakfast is ready!" Serah called him over, face still flushed with red.

… … …

Later that day-

Hope went out to the post office in order to get the mail from their P.O. box for the day since everyone was at work, he could run the errands for them. Hope went through the pile of envelopes with a bored face. He almost never received letters since he didn't know anybody enough to send him mail.

"Business…junk…junk…business…government…military…more junk…ad for Yokai Academy...application form…" Hope paused at that to check the one for Yokai Academy. It was an ad for a private school.

Hope's eyes widened as he stared at that one ad. He looked it over and read the benefits of going to this school. Now, he hadn't fully decided what high school to go to yet, but figured that the local high school would prove sufficient enough. A boy of his caliber could do so much better?

He looked around to make sure he was alone and looked back to the ad. It's a private school located on Earth…Nowadays, dimension traveling isn't that rare. A handful of people go to Earth now, and he'd always wanted to go to Earth. If he went there, then he'd be far away from all of his friends. Considering he didn't have any friends outside the circle of NORA, he saw how bleak his life currently was. If he went to Yokai Academy, he'd have to live there all year, and the transportation doesn't come around the dimensions for months.

It meant that if he chose to enroll there, he wouldn't be able to return to Pulse for months. It was a safe bet to run this decision and the application form by Lightning. She'd know what to decide for him.

… … …

Lightning stared blankly at the ad Hope had given her, and looked to the application form. Her steel blue eyes locked with Hope's anticipating green ones. She sighed before putting the ad down.

"Now are you sure about this?" Light asked.

"Yeah, it's a private academy, and it offers a lot of things we don't normally find here. Plus, it's practically made for me!" Hope explained, looking at the list of benefits.

"But it's on Earth, a whole other world away from us." Light reasoned. "I just don't want you in danger anymore. Who knows what goes on down there."

"I haven't applied to any high schools yet, since there aren't many, and this could be my chance to see the world on my own!" Hope pleaded. "Please, Lightning! I have to do this!"

Light got up from her desk and paced around the room until she turned back to Hope and place her hands on his shoulders. She sighed, but realized that he'd get nowhere if he stayed on Pulse forever. The land was safe and Orphan was defeated, but where was Hope's future in it? He needed to go to high school, and clearly this ad was delivered deliberately to him. It's as if they were watching his every move. Light disregarded it immediately. After all, who would go to the trouble to travel between worlds and deliver a weird ad for a school?

"Alright, I've decided, but you must listen carefully to what I'm about to say." Light's eyes blazed with a cold fire, but were surprisingly warm as well. "If I send you there, promise me you will stay safe, stay calm, stay away from fights, keep your grades up, and make friends, not enemies."

"I'll be fine, Light." Hope said softly, burying his head into the crook of her neck. "You taught me how to defend myself when it gets tough, and to be smart. You don't have to worry about me."

"Oh, but when you have a charge, you will always worry no matter what." Light smiled one of her rare smiles, and let Hope go. "It's decided then. You will go to Yokai Academy."

"Yeah!" Hope exclaimed joyfully.

"But…" she wagged her finger in front of his face. "If you go there, you will not give up, will you? Once you start something, you will finish it, is that clear?"

"Yes, ma'am!"

… … …

A/N: Like I said at the beginning, I'm trying this story, and I'm going to be the first one to put a Final Fantasy XIII/Rosario out there. I'm thinking of making Hope's powers return, because whether or not he still has his L'Cie brand removed, he'll still have some access to his powers, maybe even to the extent that he'll be able to summon his eidolon(?), who knows? This is so that he can defend himself, and not be defenseless, like Tsukune. Speaking of Tsukune, he won't be making an appearance in this story, sorry about that Tsukune fans! I just feel like changing up the protagonists and giving Hope some adventure time alone. Anyway, please rate and review, let me hear your opinions and I'll see you next time!

Next chapter: Hope plus Rosario