He could not believe his eyes. Before him was the girl he had lived with and loved for four years. She showed no signs of being anything beyond the Yuki he had known. Her eyes were a brown shade similar to her short hair. The clothes she donned were the ones from the night he had helped her prepare for exams.

"Zero," she said, her voice full of longing. He walked towards her, unaware of his surroundings. His desires for her were more intense than he had ever known.

"Yuki," he called, unable to hide his emotions. His walk became a run. He was running towards her, Yuki, the light of hope in his descent into darkness. She had been his reason for living once he could no longer suppress the vampire he had become.

The loss of his clan, of his parents, his brother and even his humanity had been enough to make him consider the darkest of choices. Despite being the victim of of his thirst, she had been the one to tame the coward within him. She had kept him from running away and giving-up; she had even allowed him to drink her blood. In return he had given her the only things he had left to offer, his loyalty, devotion, friendship, and even his love.

Yet, he had discovered that his savior was a fraud. She too was a vampire, a pureblood of the Kuran line. Everything about her he had known was a lie. Her vampire self was beautiful, aristocratic, vain and arrogant. A beast, who took her own brother as a lover. Everything about vampires that repulsed him and his fellow hunters.

He was a hunter first and foremost. No matter how his transformation had changed him, he was still the last of the Kiryu clan, a proud group of hunters. Even if he lived centuries, he would remember who he was, who he had been. He was Kiryu Zero, vampire hunter.

At the same time he was a level D vampire. A former human that was forever separated from humanity. He would age more slowly than the humans around him; he would outlive them. He was still mortal and would eventually die, but time did not affect him the way it once had. He would have centuries, perhaps millenia, to consider his actions, to be tortured by them.

Ignoring the inner confusion of his mind, he looked before him once more. There was only one he had loved. Yuki, the girl he had known.

"Zero, what's wrong," she asked.

"I'm confused," he answered truthfully. "You left a year ago with Kaname. Yet, you are here and you still look human. Have you suppressed your vampire side?"

"A vampire? Me?" Her eyes widened in shock and horror.

"Why would you think that," she asked. "Although the Night Class is full of vampires, there are no other vampires at the school."

"No other vampires? What about me?" A bewildered look crossed her face.

"A vampire? You? You are a vampire hunter, a human," she answered.

"Look in the mirror," she instructed.

Following her directions, he looked into the mirror that covered the wall before them. He showed no signs of being anything beyond human. Even his tattoo, a spell that was supposed to have prevented him from becoming a vampire, was gone. His lavender eyes widened and then narrowed.

"What year are we," he asked.

"Second years. I'm about sixteen and you turned seventeen today." She laughed. "Are we playing some sort of game?" She walked towards him.

"I have a very special gift for you," she whispered. "Could you close your eyes ?"

Once again he followed her instructions and closed her eyes. It was then that she kissed him.

He had never known such happiness. It felt as if all was well in the world; it felt as if nothing else mattered except for, of course, the petite teen in front of him.

He awoke in a cold sweat. In the year since she had left, the dreams had tortured him almost nightly. His heart had not learned the lesson his head knew well, that she was gone. The Yuki he had known was a lie; she did not exist. The memories of what could of been kept haunting him.

He knew that even if she had been human, a relationship would have been impossible because he was a vampire. She was too precious to him to risk hurting her in that way. As a vampire, she had proven herself to be the opposite of what she had been as a human, with the exception of one detail, she was in love with Kaname Kuran. Even if she had been a human, she would not have chosen him.

Little did he know that, less than one hundred miles away, Yuki had recently awoken in a cold sweat from the same dream.