Hey. First story in awhile.

You'll find that this is best contextualized around the chapters before Kaname showed back up.


If anyone had asked him about it, he would have denied, denied, denied. He had a reputation to uphold. He was a frickin' awesome hunter who shot stuff, n'stuff. If anyone pictured him as having any kind of leisure activity, it was probably something cool like snow-boarding, or sword fighting, or punching fires. No one in the world would have suspected that he, Zero Kiryuu, spent his free evenings fishing.

Well, no one except Yuuki. Yuuki probably suspected, considering she was sitting right next him.

The river was long and winding, like something else that was also long and winding. Zero was making every effort he could to keep pretending that he was angry with Yuuki for the whole being a vampire thing. It wasn't easy. Somehow he felt he wasn't doing a very good job of it.

"Hey, Zero, thanks for inviting me out here. I know we've had our differences, but I hope we can get past that. By the way, what time is it?" she asked.

"I'm still in love with you."

"What was that?"

"Seven thirty. That's what I said."

"Oh. Ok."

Oh yeah. Smooth.

A half an hour later, Yuki was reeling in yet another catch. Giggling, she tossed the trout into the cooler. "That makes nine Zero-kun. You haven't even caught one."

"Hn."

"You know, it's your bait that's the problem."

"You're getting small frys Yuuki. My bait will catch me the big one."

"Zero, your bait is Aidou."

Off in the distance, a blond headed figure jumped up from the water, breathing heavily, scrambling around frantically. There was a rope tied across his face.

"I fail to see your point."

"Zero, this is a river. There isn't anything bigger than trout in here. What are you hoping to catch?"

"River whale."

"There's no such thing as river whales."

"That's what Napoleon thought, and I think we both know where that led."

"What?"

"I had to sleep a lot in history class."

"Just let him off Zero."

"Fine. Whatever."

But before he could, something totally awesome happened.

The waters parted, and a huge mound of flesh jumped into the air, and then fell mouth first into a screaming Aidou.

"What the fuck was that thing?" screamed Yuuki.

"Oh, probably nothing. Like you said, river whales don't exist."

"Zero—"

"No no, I don't know anything."

"Just reel it in."

But that was easier said than done. The world had not seen such an epic clash of wills since the Tuesday before, when Zero had fought his own mirror.

After three hours of fighting, Zero finally managed to pull the whale to shore. He had been dragged down three miles, and he'd broken more than one arm, but he did it.

Yuuki put her hands to her hips as she admired his catch. "This is not physically possible."

The whale spoke. "REALITY IS OFTEN NOT PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE."

"That's not true at all."

"I think you're missing the big picture Yuuki. This fucking whale just spoke. And he's Scottish."

He was Scottish by the way. I probably should have mentioned that before.

"WHALES OFTEN SPEAK," said the whale.

"Gonna have to disagree with you there, whale," said Zero.

"OH, OKAY, IT'S NOT LIKE I'D HAVE ANY PARTICULAR EXPERTISE ON THE SUBJECT. OH WAIT, I'M A WHALE, SO I WOULD. YOUR CASE IS LOOKING PRETTY WEAK RIGHT NOW."

Zero poked its side while it thinking. Squishy. "Why are you speaking in caps?"

"I'M A TALKING WHALE. DO NOT QUESTION THESE THINGS."

"Ah well. It's not like it will matter much, considering I'm going to eat you."

"REALLY? THAT WOULD BE SUPER UNCOOL MAN."

"Don't care."

"WELL ALRIGHT. BUT I GUESS YOU'RE JUST NOT GOING TO GET YOUR WISH?"

Zero turned to Yuuki. They raised their eyebrows together. "Wish?"

"YES, WISH. IF YOU SPARE ME, I'LL GRANT YOU YOUR DEEPEST DESIRE. IT'S A PRETTY SWEET DEAL ON BOTH ACCOUNTS IF I DO SAY SO MYSELF."

Zero scratched at his chin. "Any desire I want?"

Yuuki visibly tensed. Oh, sure, the whale was probably full of nonsense, but she knew what Zero's wish would be. He would wish all the purebloods dead. Not even their newly rekindling friendship could stop him.

Zero was staring at the ground. "Alright whale. If you really are magical, try this wish on for size."

"Zero," interrupted Yuuki.

"My wish…," said Zero.

"Zero."

"Is…," he continued.

"Zero!"

"Is to be a train conductor!"

And then everything exploded.


A reasonable ending.

More to come.