Disclaimer: I don't own Vampire Knight or High School of the dead. What a shame.
A/N: Okay, so this is a Vampire Knight and High School of the Dead crossover (if it isn't already obvious), except the only actual character from Vampire Knight that's in this story will be Rima Touya (though for the main part of the story, she'll be called Nozomi Wakeshima, which was the name she was given when she was human. She's basically like Yuuki, whose parents' enclosed her vampire-ness within her and it would only surface once bitten. So yeah, it's still Rima, except it's her as a human with a different name, if that makes sense). Shiki MIGHT turn up near the end of this story, it's a possibility. Sorry if it sucks and you don't like it, feel free to tell me or correct me if I made any mistakes with facts and so on and so forth. Nozomi IS NOT REPLACING ANYONE IN THIS FIC. She'll be part of Komoru's 'survival' group but she won't replace anyone; her vampire's hidden in her subconscious and hasn't yet awoken so she doesn't have her electricity powers...yet.
Summary: When looking through her student file, Rima discovers just how much she was involved in the Zombie disease and that not everyone is born a vampire...
Prologue:
HAVE YOU SEEN THIS CHILD?
Rima Touya frowned at the old newspaper cutting before her. It was a back page article, published on the twenty-sixth of October, 2008. Exactly three months after the 'zombie' disease outbreak first occurred in Japan. And just over a week before she was officially enrolled in Cross Academy, her home for the past year and a half.
She'd heard of the 'zombie' disease (scientifically entitled: Morbus Silenti) in the past. Which wasn't hard, since it had been practically impossible to miss. It had been all over the news when she first turned up at the Academy, stories of grief-stricken families; photographs of grey coloured men with inhumanely large teeth rising from their deathbeds, video clips of adolescent teens being bitten and strangled to death, their bloodcurdling screams bounding through the deserted, blood-stained streets, followed by the crunching of bones and the squelchy noise of flesh being ground to pulp. Yes, Rima had watched various documentaries about the first few months of surviving the disease, and, every time she saw a mangled human being or zombie, a familiar feeling churned inside of her. Almost as if she'd been there at the time.
It was this very feeling which had led her to where she was today: rifling through Chairman Cross's student files. She knew it was a forbidden thing to do, neither the day class nor the night class were supposed to be reading the back stories about themselves or, more importantly, other students within the school. It was one of those rules that had to be kept at all times and could not be wavered, no matter how significant the bribe was. It had taken months upon months for Rima to even obtain the keys to the file cabinet within the Chairman's study. Leave aside actually planning out a route and time when it would be safe to have a quick peek at her life story, which was virtually impossible, since she'd never seen the Chairman leave his study except for when he was about to go home. Which, of course, would mean that Rima would have to get another set of keys to unlock his study in the first place. Ugh, it was such a problematic expedition, that she was almost tempted to give up on it all together. The key word being almost, Rima never actually gave up on anything – no matter how difficult it was. I guess you could say it was another one of her (extremely annoying in some cases) traits.
It wasn't until she had gotten a secure plan and set everything in motion that Rima began to consider what she might find when she read through her file. Heck, as far as she knew, there may not even be a file for her to read. Like most of the Vampires at Cross Academy, her past appeared to be completely anonymous. Nonetheless, she had to try to find some information about her previous life – even if it was just her actual birthday. Here at Cross Academy, like Ruka, Hanabusa and Yuuki, her birthday was celebrated on the day she arrived at the school – there was no real proof that she was actually born on the 4th of November. Which, in her opinion, pretty much defied the term 'birthday' and just made it into an unnecessary celebration. Not that she'd ever tell anyone this of course, Rima may be sarcastic, but she wasn't heartless.
"Senri, Souen, Touga – why the heck is he in here! Touya..." She paused for a moment, her fingertips hovering over the surprisingly thin paper file. A sudden wave of thought had just hit her – what if she was a bad person in the past? What if she was a criminal or something? Would she really want to read about herself when she was, perhaps, trapped inside an insane asylum? The echoing sound of footsteps knocked her out of her pessimistic thought train. She quickly swivelled around to check that the door was securely locked and bolted – it was. Shaking her head at her stupidity, she picked up the file – ignoring the sudden trembling of her wrists. A single sheet of paper slid out onto her lap – it was obvious that someone (most likely Chairman Cross) had been examining this before – as the crumpled piece of newspaper was marked with fresh fingerprints and miso soup stains. The article itself was barely the size of her palm, it just contained basic information, Birthplace: Hokkaido, Japan. Age: sixteen. School: Fujimi High. The words Fujimi High caused that feeling to churn within her again; she remembered the school's name coming up in a list of the very first places where the initial outbreak happened - surely she couldn't have been involved in that, could she? Then her eyes glanced up at the headline – the words HAVE YOU SEEN THIS GIRL? Were splashed in bold across the page, it was then followed by a picture. And, if things were confusing enough as it is, they became mind-boggling as she studied the photo of the teenage girl before her.
It was obviously some sort of school portrait – she could decipher this from the 'Fujimi High' blazer and the unusually tidy, polished appearance of the girl in the photograph. Who, what Rima thought had to be some sort of coincidence, looked almost exactly the same as she did. Her features were delicate and feminine – so much that she looked a lot like one of those petite, porcelain china dolls you see in craft shops. Her skin was tanned, which made Rima doubt they could be the same person, as her skin was the palest shade of ivory and ultimately sun-free. Like Rima, however, the girl in the photo had the exact same shade of orange-blonde hair. It hung loose around her shoulders, arranged in unnaturally straight bangs which cropped her face and accentuated her Cobalt blue eyes (once again, identical to Rima's). Her full, pink lips were pursed – making her look rather serious and mature for a sixteen year old girl. Rima herself had seen her pull that expression many times in the past. All in all, aside from the fact that her hair was not up in ponytails and she was far too tanned, she looked like an exact clone of Rima Touya. Which was a very creepy idea indeed.
Not letting this affect her judgement, Rima poured mercilessly over the article – trying desperately to add up the facts and prove that this girl was (or used to be) her. However, when she had reread the brief article for the fifth time, she came to the conclusion that two ginormous facts seemed to be preventing her from confirming her past self. These were:
The girl who the article was written about was called: Nozomi Wakeshima.
She was, unmistakably, human.
Right now, the phrase 'bitten off more than she could chew' was ringing through Rima's mind as she slowly made her way back to the Night class dorms, clutching the grubby newspaper cutting in her hand. Chairman Cross sure had a lot of explaining to do in the morning...
A/N: Me again, God these Authors' notes' must get annoying. Anyway, please review to tell me whether or not I should continue – if it's rubbish then just tell me. I'd rather write something worth reading than complete and utter crap...