Zero awoke at four o' clock in the afternoon on his first day as a member of the Night Class. He remained in his bed for another half-hour afterwards, staring up at an ornate ceiling and trying to shake off the daze brought by a combination of grogginess and disbelief at his current situation.
The sheets and bedding were almost uncannily soft, Egyptian cotton (though Zero knew nothing of it). Detailed moulding illustrating flowers and leaves added depth to the walls and ceiling. The acoutrements of his new room spoke to the caliber of nobility that usually graced the halls of the Moon Dormitory: although most of the students at Cross Academy came from some wealth, the noble-class-or-higher vampires were technically members of royalty and thus had the decadent living situation to match. Rich bastards, Zero thought, before noting ruefully that those stuck-up bloodsuckers were his new classmates.
Eventually, he summed up enough energy to leave his bed for his daily ablutions. Cold water from the shower helped him clear his head, and after some time he strode back to his bedroom ready to face the world.
He pulled open the top drawer of his bureau. Apparently the maids had seen to bringing the last of his clothes from his old room, since they were now folded nicely and organized into groups of socks, shirts, jeans and undergarments. He blushed a bit at the latter.
He continued to open and close the various drawers until he came across a group of crisp black shirts, a band of paper wrapped around each one to indicate their newness. He grabbed one out of the stack and stuck the paper loop in the small trash can near a rolltop desk by the window. At the moment the drapes were shut, and Zero realized for the first time that the lights in the room were not on and he had been shuffling around using only a narrow sliver of light coming from the edges of the curtains. Annoyed, he walked over and pulled the heaviest drapes wide, allowing an uncomfortable blast of late afternoon sunlight to cross his sensitive eyes. he cursed but left the drapes open in defiance of his physiology.
He tossed the now-unfolded shirt on his bed while going to the closet for the rest of his uniform, which he found resting on a wooden hanger next to a spare set and the official Cross Academy overcoat. Pants, vest and jacket joined shirt on the bed.
Too much had happened in too short a time. Just a few days before, he had bid farewell to his brother by taking the last of him into himself; though Ichiru had practically forced him to drink and even claimed to be happy to give his life to be a part of Zero, it killed a small part of him to know he had a part in his younger brother's death.
He concentrated on the mechanics of dressing because it was too hard to think of anything else. Sitting on the edge of his bed, he shrugged into the black shirt first, his hands slowly moving from bottom to top as he set each button into its rightful place. He fastened the bottom button of each cuff but left the top ones free.
Pants were next; he pulled them on and tucked his shirt in with more care than usual. An image infiltrated his psyche of Rido's cold eyes as they stared derisively at Zero and told him what a monster he was. Stop it. He focused hard on finding the right tightness for the silver-buckled belt he was currently fastening around his midsection.
After his standoff with Yuuki had ended, they had both returned to the Sun Dorms, where Kain, Luca and the rest of the Night Class were locked in battle with the level E's and lesser vampire followers of Rido. With the combined power of a pureblood and the world's only vampire/hunter hybrid at their side, the remainder of Rido's army was quickly disposed of. In the process, Zero's secret was revealed to the Night Class in dramatic fashion, eliminating the Day Class as an option for the ex-human.
He stopped and spared a glance in the mirror. His transition from ex-human to full vampire had not brought about any major changes in appearance, but Zero noted subtle flecks of deeper lilac in his eyes and an extra glint to his silver hair that he knew had not been there before. He likely now had developed the same magnetic pull that attracted humans to vampires despite their dangerous natures. Definitely one of them now.
Accepted grudgingly by the vampires through Yuuki's intervention, and likely spurned even more strongly by the Hunters, yet Zero was surprised to find that the latter knowledge did not bother him as much as he thought it would. Shortly after the last of Rido's henchmen had been obliterated, the blood-stained forms of Chairman Cross and Touga-sensei had appeared.
Perhaps due to the present fight's level of ferocity or to Zero's newly awakened abilities, it was the first time that the young hunter was able to sense the immense power that hid behind Chairman Cross's normally silly exterior. Cross and Touga-sensei informed him of the hunters' part in the day's battle, and of their suspicions that the leader of the Hunters' Association was complicit in the murder of his parents seven years ago.
Nowhere else to go, he thought. Zero's eyes betrayed a deep sadness as he looked away from the mirror to put on his vest. He did the long series of buttons up slowly, pausing to note the detail of the pewter rose shapes that adorned them. The stiff collar was restrictive on his neck and he left the top three buttons undone for better range of motion. Just like his old uniform. He vaguely wondered if that one had been discarded along with the school rubbish after his recent "transfer".
His socks and shoes went on next, the same ones he used with his original uniform. They were well-worn and in need of replacement, but Zero didn't care—he needed all the familiarity he could find.
He knotted the red silk tie more forcefully than normal, then readjusted it so it hung more loosely. Nowhere else to go. The silk still felt tight about his neck.
He was about to grab for his jacket but felt a sudden weariness come over him. He sat back down on the bed, hunched over in thought. The sunlight through the windows had turned a dull orange hue. He threaded his fingers through his hair as his hands moved to cover his face. Too much change and too quickly. What was he doing?
For the life of him, Zero had little idea how he had managed to go from killing all purebloods to joining the Night Class and its mission. He had been numb from the time he was forced to drink his brother's blood to when he aimed the Bloody Rose at his former fellow Guardian. Nothing made sense. Pain was the only thing that existed for him.
But maybe it didn't have to be that way.
She'd lost. Zero's vines had tightly wound themselves around her wrists and ankles, rewarding any struggles with a sharp thorn to the offending body part. She stared at the man in front of her and remembered the boy who had come to her door just four years before, a soul ready to break. She looked at his eyes again and saw that the soul was now broken, shattered into one too many pieces by the loss of too many people who were important to him. Rido had accused him of being a monster for drinking his brother's blood; he had likely already thought of himself as such even without the remark.
Trapped though she was at the other end of Zero's gun, Yuuki's thoughts were filled with the pain of the boy in front of her, whose life had been nothing but death and hurt and betrayal. For those four years, her deepest desire had been for him to be able to smile with his heart. She was surprised to realize that, even in such a situation, she still had that same desire.
She closed her tear-clouded eyes resignedly, accepting that those dreams would never become a reality. "I'm sorry, Zero," she whispered, and awaited her fate.
The shot didn't come.
After another few moments of waiting, Yuuki opened her eyes. Zero was still standing before her, but his eyes were no longer dead. Cracks in his resolve had begun to show, and the pain Yuuki had known was there had made its way through his stony countenance. The hand that held the Bloody Rose shook until, finally, the hunter dropped his hand and absorbed the dangerous weapon back into his body. He glanced sadly at his palm where the gun had rested. Damn you, Kuran. You knew I couldn't betray her.
"As I thought, I can't do it." The vines holding Yuuki receded until she could move around again. Images of his family members, dead at the hands of purebloods, assaulted his thoughts. I'm a failure. He picked up the Artemis rod from where it had been knocked from its wielder's hands. He offered it back to Yuuki as a knight would offer his sword to a king. "I lose. Do it."
He felt the weapon being picked from his hands, but a moment later it was a soft body rather than a blade that knocked him onto his backside. The girl whom he would have killed if he could was now clinging to his midsection for dear life, tears streaming from her eyes.
"Idiot!" Yuuki chastised between sobs. The Artemis rod lay several yards away, embedded in a thickness of vines that Zero had grown earlier. Zero felt the moisture in his own eyes begin to build as he lay there with the pureblood, her long hair fanned out over his shoulders. "Trying to get away from me? It'll never happen! Didn't I tell you that I'd always be at your side?"
What had begun as a battle now ended in the mutual comfort of one another's arms, each taking turns with tearful apologies to the other that the other felt were unnecessary.
Their tearful reunion was interrupted by the sound of a Level-E being destroyed in a burst of flame, causing both of them to look up and assess their location. Zero sniffed the air. "There are more coming." The scent was strongest from the direction of the Sun Dorms.
Yuuki was the first to stand, holding a hand out to Zero even as she arose. "Let's go help protect the others. We're guardians, after all." She smiled and it was as if the last few horrible moments had never happened between the two friends.
In the moment it had felt so right to take that outstretched hand, but sitting now and taking hold of his situation was causing Zero to have major misgivings. Although he had not regretted going back to help an already tired Night Class fight off the new influx of enemy vampires, he wished there were some way his nature could have remained unknown to them. Given his new powers and the extent of his transformation, however, it was unlikely that the Chairman would have allowed such a thing even if it were possible.
Zero's mind reeled from too much change in too little a time, and he wondered how the girl could have such a hold on him. Could she have manipulated his mind?
No. He quickly stopped that train of thought. Yuuki was a newly reborn pureblood, with little understanding of how to use any of her powers let alone the delicate manipulations necessary for mind control. As a vampire born of hunter blood, Zero had a certain immunity to psychic attack; the only pureblood who had been even moderately successful was Shizuka, and she was his maker. Besides, why use mind control when his soul already belonged to her?
Zero knew he had little chance to compete against Kuran for Yuuki's affections, even barring their engagement. Nevertheless, he had long ago decided that his life was forfeit to the girl who had done so much to make him feel even a little human, and he planned on following through on that vow. As much as he had tried to convince himself that the "pureblood princess" was no longer the girl for whom he had made the promise, his heart knew better.
He put on his jacket and got his books together before flopping back down on his bed, an arm draped over his eyes. I can't do this. At least Kuran wasn't there to make the day even worse: since the incident with Rido, he had been preoccupied with handling the resultant political eruption in the vampire world. His dealings also included negotiating a place for Zero as the official "enforcer" for both hunters and vampires, to be called in when a vampire of noble's power or higher was disturbing the human population.
A knock sounded at his door, more out of courtesy than anything else. "Go away, Yuuki," he mumbled. A few moments later and the door opened to reveal a miffed new pureblood on the other side.
"Come on, you're late for breakfast!" She insisted, making a move to drag the disagreeable hunter back up onto his feet. As Zero stood up she got a better look at him, admiring how the white uniform brought out the highlights in his hair. Had he always been this good-looking? She shook off the thought and managed a basic comment to him. "You look nice."
Zero looked up at Yuuki to see her now dark, long hair, reminding him of how she had looked back in primary school. She also had on her new Night Class uniform. "You, too, although I liked your old uniform better."
Her mouth quirked up a bit at the comment, a bit rueful but determined to shrug it off. Now that she had gotten a second chance with Zero, she was more determined than ever to see him truly smile. "Ready to go? They're making waffles." She grabbed a hold of his sleeve, ready to tug him about as she was accustomed. "Come on already! They're going to run out!"
Zero's mouth held the ghost of a smile before it moved back to neutral. "Yeah, right. They probably saved a whole stack for you."
Yuuki feigned affrontedness. "There's nothing wrong with having a healthy appetite!"
"You eat more than I do, Yuuki."
"Then you must not be eating enough!"
"Whatever."
Yuuki continued to tug on Zero's sleeve as he trudged along behind her. Although he wouldn't admit it, he was glad for the moment of normalcy between the two former Guardians. His life had been upended and the pieces of his soul shattered more than once; if quiet times like this were still capable of warming him, then maybe, just maybe he could put at least a few of those pieces back together again.
The dark-haired girl took a moment to spare a glance and a kind smile at the boy she had in tow. Zero replied with a quirk of his eyebrow and the girl turned back around with a sniff.
The boy in the white uniform took a deep breath. Maybe he could do this after all.