Part 1 – A Bloody Persuasion
Kaname and Yuki kept to the old cobblestone road as they cut through the dim, dripping forest. Night gradually fell. A misty fog settled all around, shrouding the jagged mountains that rose above the tree-line. The three others who trailed along behind squabbled noisily, reminding Yuki of siblings crushed together in the back seat on a long car ride.
Yuki and Kaname paced on in reflective silence. Both of them stared at the road, ignoring the others and one another, so close to making contact without ever touching.
"Where are we going, Kaname?" Yuki finally said, when she couldn't bare his silence any longer.
"For tonight, we will stay at one of the estates our people have hidden in the foothills," said Kaname, still staring blank-eyed at the road in front of him. "We will move on before tomorrow night, but even I can't go on forever without rest."
"Yes. Rest," said Yuki, glancing sidelong at Kaname from under her new-found waves of streaming, black hair. "And…"
"Yes?"
"I was hoping that we could talk," she said as gently as she could. "Because… It's just… I have so many questions…"
"Yes, Yuki, you must," he sighed.
"Lord Kaname!?" shouted one of the followers.
Lord Kaname and Lady Yuki turned back to look him.
"Aido?" Kaname finally said.
"I was thinking that since we're not technically students at Cross Academy anymore, we could, you know…"
"You want to feed?"
"Yes," said Aido, eagerly. "It feels like I haven't eaten a real meal in years."
"Go," said Lord Kaname, "But I ask that you take only animals until we are certain that we are not being pursued."
"Aw!" said one of the others, but his comments were cut short when Kaname's eyes flashed angrily.
"We must slip through unnoticed," he said in a clipped voice, before he turned to his companion. "Yuki?"
"You want me to go too?"
"Do you wish to join tonight's hunt?"
"I didn't even know we could eat animals."
"Or we could always… "
Kaname's expression didn't change. He didn't raise a suggestive eyebrow, or do something so crude as leer at her, but still, Yuki had the strangest feeling, like Kaname was waiting for some signal.
"Oh. No! I'm not hungry. Not even a little bit! You don't have to worry about me, Kaname!" She said in her brightest, most reassuring voice.
Then, not wanting to meet Kaname's intense, searching gaze, Yuki turned to Aido, and said, "You three go ahead. We will meet you later, at this estate we're supposed to be heading for. You know the way?"
"It's my family's summer house. I can find it blindfolded," he reassured her.
"We'll see you there, then," she said, and shifted her eyes back to the road.
Kaname paced silently on ahead after the three followers melted into the dark forest. Yuki hesitated, and then came trailing behind him.
"I want to know more about Mother and Father, Kaname," she said when she had finally caught up to him.
"This is a story that will take longer than just one night to tell."
"It's just…" she trailed off.
Kaname glanced at her questioningly.
"I don't really know anything. I don't even really know who I am! My memories are coming back, but only in bits and pieces. Everything is so different, and…"
"And?"
"And… so… Here we are, just leaving together. I'm leaving my old life behind, and I'm going with you into a different world. Even with my memories, I know very little about what I'm plunging into. But I know you Kaname. At least, I think I know you. I feel like I can trust you, even if sometimes I don't understand why you do certain things. I trust you because you've been there, watching over me, planning all this time to bring me back to myself, when you could have just left me safe and sound, living as a normal human girl."
"You were never normal. Nor were you ever a human girl," he interjected. "And never, not even for a moment, were you honestly safe."
"Well," she went on, "I thought I was normal. I thought I was safe enough. But that was all your doing, wasn't it? Maybe you can't imagine what it felt like for me, spending all those years thinking that I was just your favorite pet or something. When I had no memory of our life before, I always thought that perhaps someday you would lose interest in me. I imagined that I'd wake up one day, and you'd be gone forever. Sometimes, I thought it might even be you who eventually ended my life, not that the idea bothered me too much.
The way I saw things, you had given me the rest of my life after that snowy day. My life was yours to do whatever you wanted with it. Even if you had chosen to end it without warning, I would have accepted it without complaint.
Now that things are coming back to me, now that I'm starting to remember who I was, I need to understand why you worked so hard to bring me back. Was it just habit or a sense of duty? Did you owe someone a debt? Do you…?"
Kaname stared silently at Yuki, his face softening with every word she spoke. As she trailed off, his eyes regained their usual razor-sharp intensity.
"Do I… what?" he said.
Yuki hesitated. She wanted to ask him, 'Do you love me?' but she couldn't force the words out. Her throat had suddenly gone dry.
"Never mind," she said, fear pounding in her chest. She looked down at the road, away from him, afraid to provoke him into another lie. Afraid of the truth.
Kaname was suddenly in front of her, so close that his deep red eyes filled her entire view. Yuki stopped in her tracks, still fearful, and yet not really wanting to escape. His arms wrapped gently around her upper back, pulling her against him.
"Yuki," he said, "I don't want you to worry. You know I will do everything I can to protect you."
"I know, Kaname!" she said, suddenly annoyed, pushing against his chest with her elbows. "You've said that a thousand times! For now, I need you to protect me, but that's only because I don't know how to protect myself. That's only because I don't even know who… or what… I need to protect myself from! I want you to help me understand what's happened to me! I want to know what happened to you, too! I want something more than just your reassurances that you'll protect me from," at this, her voice dropped to a whisper, "the monster. The one I saw when…"
"You drank my blood?" he said, sedately, still not allowing Yuki to thrust him away.
"Yes," she hissed.
"I wish I could protect you from this monster, but that is the one thing I cannot do."
The struggle went out of her, and she allowed him to crush her flat against his chest.
"What do you mean, Kaname?"
"What did you see last night when you looked into my memories?"
"I saw Uncle Rido, and he was standing above me at some kind of alter. Blood… There was blood flowing down. I could see a reflection in his eyes, a terrifying monster. I saw nightmare teeth, shadows and red, glowing eyes full of blood lust."
"Do you understand what that was? What you were seeing?"
"Not anything more than what I just told you."
Kaname sighed.
"When you partake in the blood of others, sometimes you will be able to enter their minds, feel their feelings, or even see some of their memories. What you see, though, will always be from their own point of view."
"So… you were there with that monster, too?" said Yuki, burying her face in Kaname's shoulder.
"In a sense. What you saw was a reflection of my true form, Yuki. The nightmare teeth, the blood lust, all of it; that was me. Or, more accurately, it was the way I looked in my most degraded, debased form after not feeding for thousands of years."
"You?!" she hissed, renewing her struggle. "No. No, Kaname! You are my older brother! We have the same parents! You can't hide that from me anymore! I remember growing up with you!"
She shoved hard. He allowed her to break free, to back away from him.
"I'm older than just this one life of ours, Yuki. I am older than this civilization or the one that came before it. Pureblood vampires can live almost forever. We never age, and we are almost impossible to kill. When we seem to die, if there is anything left of our essence, even just a tiny fragment, we can be resurrected to full vitality. Needless to say, there is a reason that even other vampires instinctually fear us."
"What happened? Does this mean you're not really my brother?"
"I am, and again, I am not."
"That doesn't make any sense!"
"It will," he said, "If you allow me to explain."
"You're going to have to, aren't you?"
"Much of this part of the story happened long before you were born, and while I laid unaware, still slumbering beneath the earth. I know only what I have been able to piece together since my resurrection."
"They say your Uncle Rido was obsessed with your mother from the moment he laid eyes on her. When she eventually fell in love and married someone else, he was beside himself with grief. Later, when he learned that the union had produced a son, he went on a jealous rampage. He took out his rage on the unfortunate infant. He kidnapped your brother, and used him in a blood ritual to resurrect me.
Rido was, like all vampires, a complex and conflicted being. He claimed to have loved your mother. He claimed to have been betrayed, despite the fact that she had promised him nothing. Your mother and Rido were brother and sister, you see, two of three children of the Kuran line at that time. Although, Rido was always thought to be the weakest and most volatile of the three children. Your mother wisely chose the strongest and kindest of her two brothers to be her husband."
"Mother and Father were siblings. Yes. I already knew that much. Uncle Rido was really my uncle, then, too?"
"Yes. Then, the other side of the story is that Rido also had been plotting for some time to create some sort of monster, a servant of sorts, to help him take control of vampire society by force. He fancied himself a king, it seems. It was utter madness, of course, as had apparently always been his way.
I had been sleeping for millennia while all of this scheming was going on. I knew nothing until I was brought back into the world. And…" Kaname grimaced, "I had no choice."
"Wait. You said Rido used my brother in some kind of ritual? So then, if you aren't my brother like you keep saying, who are you? What happened to my real brother?"
"The ritual merged his essence with my own, to create a hybrid consciousness and being. His original body was destroyed in the ritual."
"That blood. The alter…?"
"Yes. That was all Rido's doing. Your brother was sacrificed to resurrect me. When I awoke, I was surrounded by a waterfall of blood, and I was hungry enough to swallow the world. I drank every drop without thinking where it came from. That was the memory fragment you saw, the last moment before my own mind and that of your brother's became one."
"To kill a helpless infant, it's…" Yuki shuddered.
"Disgusting? Wrong? Evil? I agree. Rido was a madman. A true monster."
"Why can't vampires stop this?" Yuki said, tears welling in her eyes. "Why can't we live in peace?!"
"I'm sorry, Yuki. All vampires are monsters. I did warn you."
"And now, I'm one of them," she said, backing farther away from him.
"You were always one of them. I only returned you to your true form."
"I… I think maybe it would have been better if I stayed human, even if I lost my mind," she frowned.
"It would have been a waste of your precious life. The humans would have had to lock you away. You would have become like a level-E. Your body would have kept on living long after all reason had perished, consumed in the chaos of your unrelenting blood-lust. The process had already started when I restored your true form. This way is better. This way, you be able to choose what kind of monster you will be."
"I'm… I'm not a monster!"
"We all are, Yuki. It is our nature. Although, some of us may be more monstrous than others. Only time will tell."
"Why didn't you tell me any of this… before?" she sobbed, too angry to look at him. "You talk about letting me choose, but if I don't know the truth, how can I know what I really want?!"
"Without the memories that I returned to you, how much of this would have made sense? You would have acted in ways that put you in danger if you knew the truth. You were in such a fragile state as a human, the knowledge, and the actions it would have made you take, together, they would have driven you to your death."
Her shoulders sagged. He was right. This story would have been absolute gibberish had he attempted to tell her before she turned, before her memories had come back. It would have terrified her. She would have shut him out, screamed in his face, and denied the truth at any cost. If she had even believed it, she would have called him a murderer, and she would have driven him away.
Without Kaname standing by to return her to her true form, she would have gone mad from the rising blood-lust. She would have become less than an animal, a dirty, frantic creature, locked away and forgotten by The Association in some dank, unmarked prison cell. The only time anyone would even bother to touch her would be when they came to take her blood to use in their experiments. She would spend her last days screaming incoherently in the dark until she died from despair. No one would even remember her name when they finally threw her wasted body into a shallow, unmarked grave.
"There's more," said Kaname, interrupting her dark and spiraling thoughts.
"More?"
She wasn't sure she was ready to hear it just yet.
"Do you still want to know about Mother and Father?"
"Y… Yes," she stuttered, trying to square her shoulders.
"Very well," he sighed. "This is a longer story, but not so terrible as the last one, with a happier ending. Will you sit with me while I tell it? I don't think I can stand much longer. I've been planning, waiting and watching without being able to rest or feed for more than two decades."
'Except that time with Ruka,' Yuki wanted to say, but didn't.
Yuki's heart raced, momentarily squeezing the breath out of her. She didn't understand why this particular thought had emerged, or why it suddenly caused her so much turmoil.
Kaname stopped. He stared at her. A furrow formed between his eyes as he considered the sudden change that had come over Yuki. Embarrassed, Yuki quickly averted her eyes. Kaname remained silent, his gaze seeming to bore into her.
"What?!" she was finally forced to say, her eyes fixed pointedly upon the cobblestones.
"What are you thinking?" he asked.
"I… It doesn't matter. I…" she stuttered.
"I think I can guess, but that wouldn't be fair to you," he said, frowning. "I want to give you a chance to understand my reasons. Even I am weak at times, despite my efforts to avoid adding yet more sins and atrocities to the already considerable list of sins I must atone for."
"Ruka…" she said.
"Ruka. You were deeply troubled by what you witnessed that night you came to see me at the old dormitory?"
"It was the night I realized…"
"It was the night that the word 'vampire' came to be more than just a word to you."
"Yes," she shuddered. "I saw you…"
"I know what you saw. What you saw was real, too. I never intended for you to see me at such a weak moment. I felt like I had failed you that night."
"In a way, you did. Before, you were a hero to me. After…"
"A monster?"
"No. Still a hero. You were still the person who had given me my life, and yet somehow diminished."
"What do the humans say? 'Familiarity breeds contempt.'?" he said, looking down.
"I didn't hate you, though. I wasn't even really afraid, once I had a chance to think. My first human memories are of you tearing the heart out of someone with your bare hands, although, that time you were doing it to protect me. I already knew you were a vampire before I saw you with Ruka, and that vampires drink blood. It was just…"
"It was something different to see me harming another person, to see me feeding, as opposed to protecting you, wasn't it?"
"Yes. I never imagined…" she paused, her thoughts squirming and whining like a swarm of angry insects. "And…"
"And?"
"And also, when you say you haven't fed for decades, I know that this isn't true. You fed on Ruka at least that once."
"Only that once. It was exceptionally cruel of me to do such a thing. Cruel to Ruka. Cruel to you, as well.
For vampires, the drinking of another's blood has a meaning beyond the mere satiation of hunger. I knew this when I took her, which is why it was so cruel for me to have done such a thing. It meant something to her. It made her think she and I had a connection, even though we didn't."
"Why did you do it, then?"
"I was weak. You…"
"You can't blame me for what you did to Ruka!"
"I was going to say that you unknowingly tempted me that night you came to see me in the old dorm. It wasn't your fault. I am strong, but only to a point. The desire for your blood… I was in so much pain. And you were small, so young and fragile. I would have killed you without even meaning to. All my efforts to protect you would have been for naught," he sighed. "I picked you up and stumbled with you to my rooms, and I locked you inside so I couldn't get to you so easily. I suffered, being so close to your unconscious form, carrying you, resisting the urge to… I intend to flee, to seek out a distraction to ease my desires, but as I pulled the door closed behind me, Ruka happened to be coming down the hallway.
I was nearly in a frenzy. She didn't know you were there, but she did see there was something wrong with me. She knew the signs. She saw the sweat dripping, my glowing eyes, my shaking hands. Without hesitation, she offered herself to me, as any good and loyal follower would have. I knew what it would mean if I took her up on her offer, but at that moment, I didn't care. The blood-lust had me. It was all I could do to resist you, and then, here was someone offering to take your place, someone who wouldn't die so easily under my fangs. Without her offering, I might have been unable to resist harming you that night. A flimsy wooden door wasn't going to keep me out if the pain got any worse. So, I…"
He stopped, and stared at the ground, remembering.
"I hated myself for what I did to Ruka. I hated myself even more for what I made you witness that night. I knew it couldn't have been easy for you. I feared you would hate me, shun me, fear me. That day was the catalyst for the night class's first and greatest project; the creation of a blood replacement therapy. This program, and the blood tablets it eventually produced, has saved thousands of lives, vampire and human. The blood tablets have allowed vampires to maintain their existence without violence for the first time ever, if they so choose. Many human lives were saved, since there was finally a way for vampires to resist feeding upon the humans without suffering the pain of blood-lust. If anything, you inspired me to create a better world that night, simply by falling asleep on my stairway. Since that day, I have resisted feeding, even on other vampires."
Kaname paced to the side of the road, and sat upon the ragged remains of a fallen tree trunk. He was as beautiful and perfect as ever, but for just one moment, to Yuki's eyes he seemed so alien, so ancient. She could feel the waves of exhaustion as they ravaged his lanky frame.
Kaname offered the space to his left to Yuki with an unsteady swipe of the hand.
"Will you sit with me?"
Yuki's mind roiled. Did she even want to pretend everything was fine, and just sit down next to him as if he was still her old childhood friend, when obviously, everything was not fine at all? What is the social protocol when discussing your infant brother's murder with someone who openly admits they had a hand in the deed? Do you sit with someone who has ravaged innocents, who has committed atrocity upon atrocity with no end in sight? What if they claim they don't have a choice, that they didn't always realize what they were doing until it was too late, that they did what they did because it is part of their nature? Probably not, she decided.
When Yuki didn't move, Kaname sighed, "Please. Sit with me."
Yuki still didn't sit. She wasn't going to sit. Instead, she crossed her arms and stared at him. She wanted to say something like, 'Just tell the rest of the damn story!' but she wasn't sure she was brave enough to speak without her voice faltering. Kaname's eyes flickered red. He wasn't used to being disobeyed.
Yuki held her ground, although inside, she was trembling. She had already witnessed what became of those who rebelled against Kaname's will, but she didn't care. If what Kaname said was true, then she wasn't going to sit with a monster, even if that meant he would tear her to pieces and leave her strewn in bloody chunks across the cobblestones. At least, she wasn't going to sit with this monster until he explained himself to her satisfaction.
"Fair enough," he sighed again as the fire in his eyes subsided. "You have that right."
"You still haven't told me about Mother and Father," she said, just barely containing her rage.
"This is what happened after Rido resurrected me.
I laid immobilized on the cold stone floor. My body had changed, and an alien presence had invaded my mind. I was too weak and distracted to use my powers to strike at Rido. I wanted to kill him for what he had done. I had laid myself down in the tomb for what I thought was the very last time. I never wanted to wake. I had hoped that eventually, my body would starve, and death would finally take me. Then, I was torn from my slumber by this babbling, wild-eyed madman.
I didn't realize it at the time, but I had taken the form of an infant when I had merged with your brother. Your father appeared, having tracked Rido to the spot. He saw an infant boy, which he assumed was his own son. Sadly, he was unaware that he had arrived too late to prevent the ritual from taking place. Rido and your father fought ferociously, the end result being that Rido was driven back. Your father scooped me up and fled without finishing the job. He was more concerned with rescuing his son than exacting his revenge.
He took me back to your mother, who was overjoyed when she thought that her son had survived the ordeal unscathed. The new body had not developed the motor capacity to speak. It was a hidden blessing, though, because this forced me to quietly observe your parents when I otherwise wouldn't have.
During this time, I came to realize what must have happened. The alien consciousness I sensed was that of an infant, the infant son that your father had been attempting to rescue. The consciousness was very vague. It was all feelings and desires, and it never spoke. Still, I could feel it inside of me, like a splinter just under the skin. I could experience its memories, emotions and dreams just as if they were my own.
I remember my own childhood. I was born a member of upper caste of a long-forgotten clan whose child-rearing methods were, at best, brutal and cold. Much was expected from the children born to the upper castes, so I was taken from my mother to begin my training before I was able to speak. This was their way.
Enough children died in training, it was considered unseemly for a mother to bond too closely to her infants. Grief, it was thought, would make a woman too weak to bare more children for the good of society. My clansmen thought nothing of it if a few children each year perished in the training, because those who died were weak, and hence they were useless. I survived the training, but I never saw my mother again.
The parents of the infant unknowingly cared for me. They were nothing like the only mother I had ever known. They were so gentle and kind, I wasn't sure what to think. The part of me that was me was suspicious. The part of me that was your brother loved these two people, and so I couldn't help but love them a little, too. At least, I loved them just enough to stay my hand and forgo using my powers to do them harm. Instead, I consoled myself to the thought that if I allowed them to nurture this immature body of mine, I would someday be able to take my vengeance upon the one who had resurrected me, this mad vampire named Rido."
"Our parents were gentle," Yuki interrupted, taking a single, tentative step closer to him.
"They were more than gentle. They had something between them so rare that in my thousands of years of existence, I had only ever experienced it one other time, and then only too briefly. It was like a fragile, golden thread, like clear water springing up out of the desert, or a pure, bright light in the deepest darkness. What they had was love.
Love is the one thing that can keep the monster in every vampire's heart at bay. They loved one another, and they loved their child. Instead of vengeance, or madness, or anger, or greed, or boredom, the purpose that drove them was love at any cost. The fragile thread of their love made them stronger and better than they possibly could have been on their own.
They spent their time thinking of ways to use their vast accumulated wealth to help others, to mend the broken relations between vampires and humans. They didn't want this love of theirs to remain merely their own. They wanted to share their special talents and knowledge with the world, just as I had tried and failed to do in my earlier years, before the humans drove me into exile. Our parents wanted to share this light they had with rest of the cold, dark world. Together, connected and strengthened by love, they were able to set wheels in motion to accomplish this goal, wheels that are still working to this day. In the end, they were even willing to sacrifice themselves and risk everything to ensure the continuation of this end."
"So, they died protecting us, two pawns in their grand scheme to save the world. I know that part of the story now. That's not a happy ending, though, even if they felt like they died for a noble purpose. What about us? They abandoned us to the whims of the world, which seems to have become no brighter despite all their effort."
"I promised a happier ending, not a happy ending. Vampires never get happy endings, if they ever get any kind of ending at all. As creatures of darkness and nightmare, it is said we are doomed to someday die by violence in the darkness, as we have lived. The final result of our parents' efforts could be that vampire-kind may be driven to near extinction. The light, after all, is not a vampire's natural habitat."
"That's awful," she frowned, thinking. "No. You know what? No! I refuse to accept that! If our parents could become something better than 'creatures of darkness and nightmare', then so can any vampire. It's a choice! You can't tell me we have no choice but to murder people or die by murder, to choose between doing evil and going extinct!"
"There is another option."
"What?!"
"Sacrifice."
"Sacrifice?"
"This is the way our parents chose. They chose the path less-traveled, the third road, the left-hand path. They sacrificed themselves so that others could live. It is the noblest way a vampire can die, by giving up his life so that others may live. All other paths lead to an infinity of chaos."
Yuki took a step toward him. Did she still trust him after this? He did tell her… something… when she asked for the truth. This was the first time he had ever told her anything about herself or her past, she realized. Why did he wait until now? Why did he unload so much, after keeping this secret for so long? She was forced to admit to herself that she wouldn't have understood most of the story before she had her memories back. He knew that. Did she still trust him? The answer was a reluctant and tentative 'yes, but…'.
Yes, but what if this was just another manipulation on top of all that had come before? Did he really have the strength of will to lie to her and hide so much if this wasn't his normal way? People don't suddenly change, she knew, but then, Kaname wasn't exactly just a regular person, either.
"It's fine if you don't want to trust me again after this, Yuki. I would understand. I would advise you to never trust a vampire. Then again, you are a vampire…"
Yuki blinked, surprised that he had guessed what she was thinking.
"Don't worry. I can only see into your mind when I feed on you. I can't read your mind any other time. I have lived so many years, it's easy for me to guess what you might be thinking right now. However, I think it is only fair to tell you that I do wish you would trust me again. My greatest desire is that you would choose of your own free will to stay by my side. I can be very persuasive when I want to be. Only trust me if you want to. Only decide to come along if you want to. Don't let me talk you into it. Trust your instincts."
"Okay. I will," she said, and then took another step toward him.
Now she was standing by his side, looking down at the top of his bowed head. She really was considering sitting beside him, despite all the insanity of the last few minutes. He seemed, more than anything, utterly exhausted. She could understand. She was exhausted, too.
"Over time," he suddenly went on, "as my new body grew, as my love for our parents grew, I developed a different view of the world. Maybe some of that was as a result of the subtle influence of your brother's consciousness. It's hard for me to say for sure, since our minds and bodies had become one. Over time, I decided that I would try once more to use my knowledge and power to help others. I kept my presence secret, even once the immature body finally developed the motor skills needed for speech. I played my part as the infant son, then the toddler, then the obedient child named Kaname Kuran, like the real Kaname who had come before him. For a time, life was so pleasant and gentle, I even lost my will for vengeance upon Rido.
It was during this time that you came into the world, Yuki. I loved you from the moment I saw you, less than a day old, your eyes still pinched shut, your fat little baby hands curled into neat little fists. It didn't matter to me that you were just a tiny, blind infant who knew nothing, because I knew you would learn and grow. It didn't matter to me if you decided to one day get married and leave the family behind, or if you grew up and decided you hated me. I knew that these were just two possibilities out of the infinity of time and space afforded to our kind. Despite all of this, I vowed I would love you, stay as close to you as I could, and protect you until the end of my life, no matter the cost.
Then Rido re-emerged to renew his rampage. His plans hadn't changed. He still desired a powerful servant, since the first one he created had apparently disappeared. I had changed enough since the last time he saw me, he did not realize my identity for a time. Somehow, even though your parents had carefully hidden you from vampire society, Rido managed to find out about your existence.
To create a new servant, he needed the blood of yet another pure-blood child. Innocent, powerful blood, that of a pure vampire who has yet to take her first life. This time, the child he sought out was you.
He came after you with everything he had. He sent legions of his servants to kidnap you. He manipulated the political system in such a way that your parents were disgraced in vampire society, forced into hiding, and left unprotected. The attempts to kidnap you were myriad, ongoing and progressively devious.
Father realized my true identity when Rido appeared in the flesh at the new home we'd established in exile. Rido set about putting the house under siege with his vampire servants. He drew father outside, and attacked him. I tried to defend father, but when I attempted to strike a blow against Rido, I was unable to follow through.
Rido immediately recognized that this must mean I was one of his vampire servants, and quickly deduced that I must be the servant that had escaped all those years before. I remember the look in Father's eyes as he realized the truth. He hesitated, and so Rido was able to attack first, to weaken him.
Father managed to severely damage Rido's body with a Vampire Hunter's weapon, making it impossible for him to use his healing abilities. In the end, though, Father was unable to strike the final blow before Rido was able to tear him apart and absorb his essence. Before he turned to dust, I remember that Father told me it didn't matter to him who I really was, because to him, I was his beloved son.
I had expected him to curse me as he lay dying, but instead, he said… he said he loved me. And… I…" Kaname's voice faltered.
He covered his face, consumed with his grief, and stayed that way for several minutes. Yuki couldn't help it: she sat down beside him and put her arm around his shoulders. She felt sure he was finished, but finally, he lifted his head and said, "Rido fled into the darkness to rejuvenate his injuries, but left his vampire servants to finish his work. With your father out of the way, he knew it was only a matter of time before Mother was overwhelmed, and he finally had the powerful blood he needed to resurrect his servant.
Mother died without knowing the truth about me that very same night. She sacrificed herself in order complete the spell that changed you into a human girl. Her purpose was to make your blood useless for the resurrection ritual, and thereby give him one less reason to pursue you. She wanted you to have a chance at a happy life, instead of the life she had, one of political machinations, terror, darkness and blood.
There was chaos as the vampire servants swarmed the house. I rushed to protect you. Disoriented, you managed to escape the melee unscathed. You ran out into the snowy yard, and fled into the woods. This was the moment when your human memories began, with me rescuing you from Rido's vampire servant in the snowy forest.
Of course, you didn't know who I was or what was happening. I wish things had happened differently, that your first memory could have been pleasant. Instead, you were accosted in the woods by a menacing vampire, and you watched in terror as I tore his still-beating heart from his chest. He was full of evil thoughts, and so his blood tasted disgusting, like wet sand in my mouth. I didn't even bother draining him.
I knew that wherever we went after that, danger would follow us. Rido did not realize what Mother had done. It was obvious, though, that this madman wasn't going to stop coming after you or I, even once he discovered your blood was useless in the ritual he had been trying to perform.
It would be assumed that if you weren't found in the Kuran residence, you must have left with me. Until Rido's servants realized otherwise, I could draw them away from your trail. Rido would be pursuing me instead of you for a while, in an effort to capture and subdue the first servant he created. Just being near me would be dangerous for you.
Quickly, before the servants could mobilize to come after me, I took you to the house of an old family friend, whom you know as Headmaster Cross, your adopted father. I begged him to watch over you. What you didn't know, though, was that Cross was one of the strongest Vampire Hunters the Association ever had. This person was the only one with a remote chance of successfully protecting you while I led Rido's servants in hot pursuit around the globe.
When things settled down, and it became apparent that Rido had been forced by his injuries to go back into hiding, the political tides began to change. I was eventually welcomed back into vampire society.
No one knew who I really was, and since I showed myself to be a powerful pure-blood claiming to be the Kuran heir, and I was about the right age to be the infant son of the Kuran house, they didn't dare question me too deeply. No one realized that you had survived Rido's attack on the Kuran mansion, partially because very few people in the vampire world even knew of your existence. In fact, it was widely accepted that our parents went mad, killed all the servants and committed suicide together, though there were still vague whispers floating around that I or someone else had murdered them. I did everything I could to squelch these rumors, without seeming to actively squelch them, of course. I needed to be able to move in vampire society in order to protect the secret of your existence, and a murder investigation would make that more difficult.
Once it was safe, I couldn't resist making regular visits to check on you. It was during the course of these visits that Headmaster Cross and I conceived the idea of establishing a night class at his school for vampires, to improve vampire-human relations. Or, more accurately, I persuaded him to do so, without telling him that this needed to happen in order to make my renewed plot to kill Rido go smoothly. He wouldn't have approved of anything that would lead to violence. This time, though, I plotted for reasons better than simple vengeance. I did it because I had vowed to protect you on the day you were born. Since it was obvious Rido would try to kill you the moment he was able, the only thing I could do was move to kill him before he rose on his own and came after you.
That, of course, was how Zero got pulled into the mess. I couldn't kill Rido myself, so I had to find someone who could be made strong enough, who was able and willing to strike the final blow when the time came."
"So you used Zero as a pawn."
"In my defense, he was already another vampire's servant before I made him my own. I offered him a chance to keep his life and his sanity for doing what he already wanted to do, which was kill vampires. His previous master seemed only to be enjoying toying with him, didn't she? I doubt she would have ever actually given him any of her own blood, despite her promises to the contrary. It was only a matter of time before Zero slipped to level-E and The Association killed him. It's possible that all the power he received so that he could kill Rido saved his sanity and even his very life."
"Or, it's possible that he really could have resisted feeding until the end. He might have stayed relatively human, and never ended up being the grotesque monster I saw on the battlefield last night."
"No one could be that stubborn. He would have eventually lost his mind, either from the obsession that comes with the refusal to feed, or from the unbearable guilt once he began feeding."
"You don't know Zero as well as you think, then. He's as stubborn as his horse. What did headmaster say about him once? It was actually kind of funny. He said, 'You can bury that boy ten feet deep, and he's so stubborn, he won't suffocate. Just to spite you, I think he'll learn how to breath dirt instead.' That's what he said."
"Perhaps I don't really know him. I do know vampires and blood-lust, though. There has never been a human, once turned, who can resist the urge to feed for very long. It was amazing the way Zero resisted for more than four years before he fell to temptation. Now that you are a vampire, you must understand what I mean by that."
"Yeah," said Yuki. "It hurts. If you can smell blood, it hurts worse. Until you taste it, the pain only gets stronger every second, no matter how much you resist. You'll do anything. Say anything. You'll lie to someone you love, you'll even kill them, just to get that pain to stop. Your body almost acts on its own to move you toward the source of the wonderful scent. It's like in the cartoons, when a good smell picks a character off of their feet, and sails them through the air to the tasty pie that's cooling on the windowsill. Only, instead of it being a pie, it's your classmate who just got a little paper-cut. You want to lie, to say anything you need to in order to coax them into a broom-closet somewhere and then feed until their heart stops beating. And that's just someone you kind-of know, someone you've been going to class with since you were kids but never really took the time to talk to. When it's someone you really feel strongly about, the blood-smell is like fire burning throughout your entire body. You want to tear them apart."
"So you know how you made me feel, then, all those times you let Zero drink your blood?"
"I do now," she nodded.
"I could barely stand it when Zero was feeding on you. I wanted to reduce that boy to dust every time he drove his fangs into your perfect, pale flesh. The pain was tremendous those nights when the smell of your blood would come wafting in my bedroom window. All I could think about was the way your warm, red blood must taste as it went pouring down his ungrateful throat. I would have torn him apart that very first time, if it wasn't for the fact that I knew you would never forgive me for harming him, and neither would I be likely to find anyone so willing or able to kill Rido for us."
"I almost apologized for all the pain I caused you, but then, I'm not sure I want to say I'm sorry to you right now…" she trailed off.
"I don't want you to apologize. You didn't do anything wrong. You didn't know because I didn't tell you. I didn't tell you because it would have made you suffer. You don't owe me anything. I am the one who devoted myself to you, not the other way around. Remember, Yuki, I said 'love at any cost'? I meant it. Any cost."
Yuki leaned against him.
"You can't do that, Kaname. I'm an idiot, and even I know that 'love at any cost' is a terrible idea."
"I've already chosen my path."
"But what about love at almost any cost?"
"Love at any cost," he insisted wearily.
"Does that mean you're going to sacrifice yourself, too, someday? Like our parents did?"
"Yes. Someday soon."
"No. No! You can't!"
"The wheels are already in motion. I've lived enough, and most of it was painful, lonely and long. I've done many evil things in this life and the last, some of them possibly worse than Rido depending on how you would judge me.
I honestly believe that Rido deserved to die. If that is true, then I have long deserved a fate worse than death for my own misdeeds. After what I've done, I know I don't deserve your love. Even if you wanted to love me, it would be a wasted effort. I am damaged beyond repair, corrupted to the bone, mired in my own evil. I am lost. Only this sacrifice can possibly redeem me."
"That's not fair. I thought I was allowed to choose!"
"You are, Yuki."
"Then how can you say these things? How can you expect me to…"
"You need to know the truth, even if knowing it makes you flee from my side this very night."
"I… I can't."
"You can't know the truth, or you can't flee?"
"I can't leave you. Even after all you've done, the one thing you haven't done is leave me. You've stayed by my side, just like you promised. How can I leave you after that?"
"There is still hope that you'll be able to evolve, Yuki, to change so that you will survive the coming light. I'll die either way, by violence, by sacrifice, or from an overabundance of light in the world. I can't change. I need the darkness to survive."
"You can change. I want you to stay with me. Come live in the light with me. We'll find a way!"
"Don't be a fool. People never change, even if they make different decisions. They are what they are," he sighed, and momentarily, his shoulder leaned against hers. "And I am a monster.
Your brother's mind and mine are at a consensus on this. When the plan our parents set in motion comes to fruition, he and I will sacrifice ourselves so that others may live. It is the only way we can express our love that will not lead to more darkness," he paused to glace at her sidelong, but didn't say anything more for a while.
"So, that's two against one, your brother and I in favor versus your one vote in opposition. I'm sorry, Yuki, but we've got the majority."
"It's not fair that you give yourself two votes," she said, frowning.
"I was trying to make a joke. Humor has never been my strong suit."
"Yeah," she agreed, "As if that isn't obvious. Too serious. Bad timing."
"Always," he said, as he wrapped his long fingers around her far shoulder in order to pull her closer.