Chapter 1
The night-time breeze slithered through soft brown hair, hugging it to the owner's face. While pushing her hair behind her ear, the girl's eyes darted back and forth, searching for any sign of disturbance or misbehaviour. Yuki Cross, school guardian and member of the disciplinary committee was patrolling.
It was an abnormally peaceful night on the grounds of Cross Academy, though tensions were building high. The peacefulness was due to the cancellation of lessons for the night-class, and so the chaos that ensued when trying to keep the day and night classes separated was avoided. However, the reasons for the cancellation were the in fact the source of the rising tension. There had been a murder at the academy! One of the day class students had been found dead the previous night, drained of all her blood. As the night-class was consisted entirely of vampires, they were immediately suspected.
The murder therefore, was also the reason for the increased patrols of the guardians through the school grounds at night. It would be unforgivable if they allowed another murder to occur on campus due to lax security. Unfortunately, the best case scenario in this tragedy would have been for one of the night-class to have rejected their blood-tablets, and hence been 'snacking' on the day students. The worst case scenario was that a vampire from the outside world had murdered the girl. That they had gotten past all the school's defences; past the territorial night-class and the ever watchful guardians; and then managed to escape back out of the grounds undetected.
Yuki shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. Still, she could not stop the shiver that ran along her spine at the prospect of a vampire killing on school grounds. Scanning the surrounding area, Yuki wondered where Zero had gotten to. As a fellow guardian, Zero had been scouting the Sun dorms for signs of the culprit, with plans to meet up with Yuki so that they could patrol together, as was safest in their time of crisis.
As Yuki walked to the border of the schools woodland, a shadow danced across her peripheral vision. Turning around, she observed the tree-line, searching for even a hint of movement... And there it was again, the flickering of shadows in the corner of her eye, as if something was trying its best not to be noticed.
"Zero?" Yuki called. After all, it wouldn't have gone well if she had accidentally mistaken her partner for their target, and attacked him. "Zero?"
There was no answer.
"Who's there?" she asked hesitantly. Gathering her courage Yuki started to give warning to the presence she could sense there. "If you are a member of the day-class, you MUST return to your dorms immediate—"
A hissing sound cut Yuki short, and she twirled to face where the noise had originated from. A figure strayed from the darkness of the trees, and stepped into the moonlight. Reaching for the artemis rod, Yuki withdrew her weapon and took on a defensive stance. This person was a vampire! Yuki's senses went on high alert as she saw this was not one of the night-class, but a level E; the peasants of the vampire world, humans turned into vampires, consumed by their bloodlust and completely incapable of reason.
"You've killed here before." Yuki said to it, as it regarded her with madness and something akin to a spark of intelligence dancing within it's eyes. Suddenly, the vampire lunged, with a growl worthy of the hounds of hell. Yuki quickly dodged to the side, swinging the artemis rod so that it smashed into the vampire's stomach, causing it to crash to the ground. With another growl, the vamp flashed it's fang before leaping at Yuki once again. Unable to dodge the attack, and with nowhere to run, Yuki performed one of the most instinctual defence techniques: she brought the artemis rod up and hit the vamp in the groin!
Due to the nature of the artemis rod being an anti-vampire weapon, and the fact the level E used to be a guy, this was able to stun the vampire for precious moments, allowing Yuki to regain her footing. However, the vampire was both resilient and determined, recovering quickly and continuing it's attacks. Under the unrelenting onslaught, Yuki began to tire, her defence slowly weakening. She was unable to match the vampire's persistent frenzy.
Yuki stumbled under the attack, giving the level E the perfect opening enabling it to knock the artemis rod from her grasp. Stepping back, Yuki attempted to retrieve the rod, but was thrown to the floor before she had the chance, her body sailing away from the artemis rod. She was falling, and with no means with which to protect herself, Yuki's head collided with the pavement, echoing a loud crack. Dazed, she brought a hand up to her head, feeling a slippery damp substance coating her hair: Blood. There was a snarl from somewhere above her. Before she could react, the vampire was upon Yuki, bearing down to steal it's latest meal... every last drop of her blood!!
