Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot. Vampire Knight belongs to Matsuri Hino sensei.
V2 Rewritten 8/28/2011
"ღ*~+~*ღ"
"All finished!" Yuuki smiled brightly at Zero, her fair skin flushing pink at their proximity.
White Lily, one of the horses at Cross Academy's equestrian center, had gone mad when Yuuki tried to groom her. She should have known better than to go near the hot-tempered mare, but the damn peacemaker within her reasoned—irrationally—that she should at least make an effort towards the unwilling animal. And as Zero expected, the results were the same. Though she had grown more violent and restless as of late, and instead of her usual warning bite, Zero, with his quick actions, had to shield her from the steel of the ceremello's horseshoes.
A crescent of dark red blood started to dot and seep through the new gauze that was fixed in place over Zero's injury. For a moment Yuuki fretted about having to change it again, but a yawn from the silver-haired youth stifled those thoughts. He was a vampire after all, and wound would likely be healed before first period tomorrow. They were practically indestructible, those vampires, as far as nature was concerned. What with their calculating intelligence and durable bodies... she trailed her fingers down the bare skin of his stomach and over the firm ridges, her breath catching when she made him shiver.
"Sorry," she amended, turning back to the medical cabinet. "The area must still be tender, I can probably dress your abdomen in case she cracked your ribs."
Zero could feel the ghost of her wandering fingers long after they had been withdrawn.
"Thanks," he said gruffly, controlling his own blush. "but I'll be fine."
Through the lingering euphoric haze of pain Zero swore something had shifted in the shadows. He had felt more so than seen it through the corners of his eyes, and not for the first time that day. Something was following him, casting its dark aura over his senses like a raincloud.
What did it want?
Zero gave an experimental sniff, silently berating himself for the inhuman behavior as he affixed his keen violets to the writhing presence beyond the shadows. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, abdomen throbbing in disapproval. This he chose to ignore, since coupled with the slight blood loss, it did not help soothe his starving gut. Grabbing his school jacket from the coat rack, Zero yanked it on, not bothering to button it over his bare skin as he headed for the door to the infirmary.
"Where are you going?" Yuuki asked, eyes filling with worry. She felt as if he shouldn't have been moving so soon, if his hesitation when sitting up had been any sort of indicator.
"To find the Chairman, I'll be right back." he informed. Yuuki shuffled around the contents of a tin pillbox. His pillbox, to be exact. He watched on in disdain as tidied up the area, clearly intending to go with him.
Maybe she'd be safer staying where she was?
"Stay here to clean up and lock the door." he struggled for a reason without alerting her to the potential threat lingering in the air. "We weren't supposed to be in there without the nurse, and if she comes back and finds you in there with part of my uniform," he nodded to his bloody and dirt sodden undershirt. "she'll think more went on than just wound treatments."
"Alright." she replied, buying the lie.
"Thanks, Yuuki. Keep Artemis close. I'll be back for you."
The door swung shut as Zero departed, leaving Yuuki to finish discarding the used gauze and sanitize all surfaces. Blood was not something that could be left lingering in the open at Cross Academy, and she saw to it with peroxide. Blood tablets, however...
That's right, in her haste to clean she had forgotten to make sure Zero took his medicine. She sighed and threw the rag she had been working with into the wastebasket. Zero had always gone on about how terrible the tablets tasted, avoiding their chalky, coagulated flavor in favor of drinking from her neck. Did the tablets really taste that bad, or did she taste that good?
With a guilty glance over her shoulder, Yuuki considered the tin on the table. The silver of the pillbox gleamed innocently beneath the bright white fluorescents, piquing her curiosity further. What would it hurt to try one out? Living around vampires for all of her life did leave her with all sorts of questions. Some of them she was afraid to ask even Kaname about.
Well, Zero had taken them for a while before his inner vampire made itself known. He was human, and it didn't have adverse affects, right? Without a second thought Yuuki shook one out and popped it into her mouth, spitting it out the moment it touched her tongue.
"Ugh!" her face contorted sickly as she hacked and dry heaved, biting her lip when she spat out the nasty pill. It tasted like the coppery one rin coin she had accidentally eaten out of the headmaster's change dish when she was young. No wonder Zero hated it!
Warmth flooded into Yuuki's mouth as she spit the memory of the flavor out into the sink. She turned on the faucet to dissolve the pill and wash her mouth out, but the taste of actual blood in her mouth made her head ache. The room around her pitched and swam before her unfocused eyes, the bed Zero had just been occupying tempting her to rest until the room became grounded again.
Cursing herself inwardly for putting up the gauze, Yuuki settled for swallowing the blood from her cut lip as she settled on the bed. The taste wasn't anything special, she decided, but it did make her think. Her eyes drifted closed in thought, grasping at the escaping memories like cupping sand, or water slipping through her fingers.
Blood slipping through her fingers.
Pouring down her hair, into her mouth torn open from all that screaming. Ash tickling her nose. This damned scratching noise against the tiled floor.
Her senses cleared in that moment, eyes fluttering open to a sight that was most definitely not the infirmary. She knew that haunted, wide-eyed look a bloodied mirror offered her, and the hand on her shoulder was her only source of comfort.
"ღ*~+~*ღ"
Once out of the infirmary, Zero sampled the air again. The scent of the stalker was clearer now that the stench of the antiseptics was far behind him. It reminded him of a musk, like something Kaien kept a satchel of in his home, but with a hint of blood. It was somewhat tempting, and definitely vampire.
Footsteps echoed down the corridor to his left, alerting Zero's other senses and starting the manhunt. He didn't have to worry about Yuuki, she wasn't the one bleeding. Whatever it was would come after him if they were out for blood.
Upon rounding a corner the golden fingers of sunset caressed his face and exposed skin. He shrunk back slightly, not used to the onslaught of light since he had been indoors for the better part of an hour undergoing Yuuki's clumsy treatment. Sure, the setting sun wasn't particularly harmful on his vampire skin, but the rays did make it tingle uncomfortably. Prolonged exposure to strong sunlight would make it burn worse than hellfire, but at the moment the sun was a minor nuisance in his investigation.
The sun, however, was not the one burning holes into him at the moment. Zero was being watched. All day, he was sure, as he made his way down the golden corridor with one hand on the concealed Bloody Rose in his jacket, the other hooking a thumb through his belt loop. Further down the corridor lied the darkened territory of the night class, and from there a flash of white in the shadows caught his eye. He was close. The chase would end soon.
Running as quietly as he could, Zero crossed into the darkened halls. He belatedly noted that classes had changed while he was being treated, likely thanks to Chairman Cross handling the prefect duty. Zero snorted at the thought. About damn time he did something worthwhile at the school. Later on, perhaps he really would visit him to discuss breaking White Lily of her attitude.
He followed the scent past the gaping doors of their homeroom, allowing himself a good view of the creatures dwelling within. As a unit, the entirety of the night class looked over to Zero with glowing crimson eyes. He slowed down, panting lightly as he debated over clutching at his middle. It was sore, and perhaps he had cracked a rib after all. But one look from those beasts, and he thought better than to show any weakness to them. A frown etched itself onto his face as one of the pureblood's lackeys approached him.
"What are you doing here, prefect?" Aidou scoffed, folding his arms over his chest. "Come to offer yourself to us?" his icy eyes flit to the darkening red seeping through the gauze. The rest of the lesser vampires turned away, uninterested, perhaps afraid, Zero wagered, of facing him. After all, he had nearly killed Aidou once, and didn't hesitate to take aim at his pacifist of a cousin Kain as well.
"How boring." Shiki muttered from his reclined spot in the stadium seating. "It takes all the fun out of making him a sport." he cracked the end of his stick of chocolate Pocky for added emphasis.
"It probably wouldn't be as interesting as you'd expect." Rima concluded, finishing her own stick. "This is much more exciting." she counter-argued, taking the end of Senri's stick between her lips. She turned from her spot on his desktop to help him finish his stick, mouths nearly touching with a ghost of a smirk, both refusing to let go as the chocolate smeared against their lips.
"Shameless." Ruka tutted softly, examining her nails from her perch on the curtained window sill.
Zero didn't pay attention to their ramblings. He sampled the air from within the classroom, deciding to draw his weapon when he heard the faintest skrit-scratching noise. Ruka's brow furrowed, her expression scandalized.
"Were you sent here to hunt us? Or did you want to make nice?" she asked skeptically.
"Keep away unless you're ready to fight." Zero warned, tone low and deadly as he backed away—his pursuer was not there.
"My apologies, mister prefect," a voice started.
Zero whirled around, gun at the ready. The night class swarmed him silently, their movements barely causing a susurrus against him. Flame and ice were threatening whispers on his skin, fingernails drawing blood from his neck, a disgruntled Ruka stood in a frontwards flank of Kaname. The lazy twins, or so Zero liked to think of them, probably stopped snogging in the classroom, as he could feel their static hovering in the background.
Kaname allowed him an indulgent smile reserved for children as he lowered the barrel of Bloody Rose with the tips of his fingers. Zero could feel his temper spike at the patronizing action, but he couldn't shoot unless he thought up a very good reason. Seiren he could easily kill now because of the new stinging wound in his neck, but he determined that the loss would be minimal.
"Just what were you planning on doing with that?" he asked, inclining his head. "Enough. Put that away and come with me." he turned to go down the corridor.
Ruka hesitated, deciding to speak up. "Kaname-sama..."
He held up a finger to stop her.
"Enjoy class." he dismissed with a smile. They knew it was more an order than a suggestion, and with distrustful looks the rest of the night class filed back into the classroom.
Zero frowned, following the pureblood. He kept his weapon drawn, though lowered in a relaxed pose. They wandered through the corridors for a few minutes, eventually approaching the school entrance. He was growing increasingly tired of the silence, and decided they had gone far enough to cut to the chase. "Why were you spying on us?"
"'Us'?" Kaname mused. He turned to quirk a brow at Zero's still form, the hunter catching the implication as he was beckoned into the encroaching night.
"Yes. Don't play dumb even if you're great at it."
"So then is there something between you and Yuuki?" the purueblood inquired.
"What business is it of yours?" Zero wrinkled his nose, subconsciously rejecting the idea. She didn't need to be tainted by him any more than she already was. Kaname merely stood there at an arms length away, studying the hunter's face with keen interest.
"Pardon me." his voice was amused. "I had assumed -"
"Well you assumed wrong." Zero snapped, irritated at that fact. "Is this all you called me out here for?"
Kaname frowned, closing his eyes. He seemed to be mulling something over, biding his time to pick out the right words, leaving Zero with the impatience he was so well acquainted with.
"Spit it out, vampire."
"You're one as well." an amused smirk painted his lips, quickly falling to a grimace. "She seems to hold an awful lot of your attention." he opened his eyes to spare a side glance to the silver haired teen, looking away before Zero could get a proper reading on the direction in which his thoughts were going. "Too much. I don't like you near her."
"Like hell." came Zero's snort.
Kaname's eyes narrowed in response. Was that jealousy Zero was sensing? Interesting.
"What we do on our own time is none of your business, and I'll thank you to stay the hell away."
Both of them knew he was referring to himself. He was drinking her blood that smelled curiously similar to the vampire next to him.
"Such brutal words, Kiryuu." Kaname whispered, eyes narrowing further into mere scarlet slits. "If you're looking for someone to play doctor with, next time find someone with actual medical experience. Don't endanger those around you because you want to make someone feel better about getting you hurt. Blood loss is very dangerous," he glared at the crusted gauze patching Zero's stomach. "for those like you."
The hunter bristled at those words as he, but he knew the jackass was right. He chose to hold his tongue as he waited for Kaname to depart, refusing to turn his back to the vampire. Being near the beast gave him chills, even now they raised his hair on end. Tingles ran up his spine in dread, ripping at his frayed nerves that had nothing to do with the vampire.
A shrill shriek cut through the silence, bloodcurdling, feminine, familiar.
There was a race between the two men as they rounded corners, Kaname obviously much faster as they passed the night class, who were peeking curious heads out of the classroom. Some were grappling with indecision about following the two, only refusing to hesitate when smell hit full force.
Blood, and lots of it. Dread gripped its vice-like fingers around Zero's heart that threatened to hammer its was out of his chest. His breathing was labored, straining the wound on his abdomen and confirming that, yes, he had indeed cracked a rib. His own blood pounded in his ears, nearly drowning out the staccato of racing footfalls around him.
Arriving to the infirmary, the door was closed and locked, but the smell permeated, stronger than ever. With a swift kick, the door flew back into the wall, hanging by one hinge.
Before them was a sight that would haunt Zero forever—several lacerations graced the white skin of a young girl, her entrails splayed out before her as if they had just exploded from her center. Her auburn hair was darkened with her own blood, red pooling so completely around her little body. Eyes wide with fear, Yuuki stared blankly, unseeing at Zero's face.
Zero, in turn was rooted to the spot. He felt high, as if his mind and body were having serious miscommunication issues. He could barely hear Kaname's shouts at the night class to stay back, several having to restrain Aidou as well as themselves. He was the only other one besides Zero who had tasted Yuuki's blood, not that many had caught on to the fact that he was a vampire too.
His injuries didn't hurt anymore. He couldn't even feel the raging burn of thirst that should have flared up with so much blood in the air. He could only feel the trembling breaths wracking his lungs, becoming worse and worse. The scene suddenly started to shake, and Zero was detached from reality, nothing more than a prisoner of his subconscious, trapped within his own brain. His mind was calm as can be as he watched the scene unfold, but the same could not be said for his physical self. There were some arguments as the screaming started all around him. No... no, no, NO! He didn't kill Yuuki, so why was the screaming so loud in his ears?
Belatedly, Zero realized that the screaming was so close because it came from his own throat. It was an odd sensation that fascinated him to no end as his eyes remained unmoving from Yuuki's blank chocolate stare. He could feel an annoying pull on the top of his skull, unsurprised to find his fingers tangled in his hair.
No, this didn't make sense. Less than a literal five minutes ago she was smiling and blushing. Now? His brain was too slurred to even try to fathom what could have possibly happened.
Her eyes swum before his own, the chocolate clouding over more noticeably as the minutes passed like seconds.
Things had gone quiet before his senses faded to white, and the floor swirled up to kiss his face.
"ღ*~+~*ღ"
A one Rin coin was introduced in Japan in 1873, made of copper, and are sold these days for a good amount of cash. The point of the coin is to demonstrate Kaien's age, or how long he keeps crap around, and be a filler for where we would usually akin the taste to a penny. Though personally, I think my blood tastes like iron, and nothing like a penny. Meh.
Reviews: Feed the Beast
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