A/N: I know the next update was suppose to be for Hunter and Prey and that I never told you guys about this story but I couldn't get this off my mind. Now I know this part has nothing to do with this story but from Being Mortal, some people are a little confused by the relationship with Zero and Kaname so far. I want to point out that at the last part of chapter 1, Kaname only finds that Zero is interesting. Some people asked if Kaname remembers the past but I'm not going to answer that one. You'll have to find out as the story progresses. Anyway, about chapter 4, the only reason for Kaname to harass Zero is because he likes messing with Zero.

Right now, they both think they're both straight and all. I guess you could call it a little game of theirs. Kaname wants to try and humiliate Zero because he was being rude on the first day of class so to summon it up, they're not actually in love. I think that would move the story too quickly. Now that I have that off my chest, let's go on with this story.

Disclaimer: I don't own Vampire Knights or the characters. I only claim the idea.

Warning(s): A/U (Alternate Universe), boy and boy love (Zero and Kaname), cursing, first point of view, OOC (Out of Character - a bit on Zero's part since I can't write first POV), and typos (I looked the story over but I can't promise that I caught all the mistakes).

Grim Prince

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Summary:

AU: Zero Kiryuu was just an average student until the fated day when he was hit by a car. Now he found himself without a body, stuck in between the living world and the dead. Then the soul keeper shows up. Zero X Kaname

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Mission 1: Dread

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I have never thought about death. It was always just another word that had always been used in a sense of dread. It would twist people's minds up to corruption and was the word that resulted from wars, meaningless fights. I never pondered it; I never thought it would become a serious part of my life.

And I didn't think it'd affect me like many of the unfortunate people in this crime filled world. Sure, I've seen death before on television, I've had nightmares about dying but I never thought I'd actually see one in real life, personally. I never realized I'd get to experience any deaths at all.

I didn't think the death I'd experience was my own.

I mean, would anyone expect their death at such an early age? Someone who was young and healthy and had a great life as I was, as I had? It's strange, it's just so strange. I would never have expected it coming. I was right there, healthy and alive. I was just right there, minding my own business, walking home from fetching grocery for my step-father and sister who wasn't even related to me by blood at all.

But there I was, at the corner of the street, almost home from a little walk to the store and then I looked both ways, both ways and I swear I never saw it coming. It was a car, a regular car driven by a regular adult who knew what they were doing. And I knew there was a red light at that moment and who would be so foolish as to run over a red light?

Obviously they were.

They ran it over just as I was walking across the street minding my own business after I had looked both ways but I never saw them coming until it was too late. I heard a loud screech and before I knew it, my body was flying over the street, in front of that damn red light looking as if I couldn't care less about the world because I was just trying to mind my own damn business.

I really didn't think I'd experience my own death.

But I did.

And I found out later, when I woke up to realize there were two me, one that I was controlling even at this moment and my physical human body that had been sprawling on the path right in between the traffic light and that infuriating car, that the driver was not a regular adult. He was actually a teenager like I was; attending the same school I had been and yet was a stranger all the same. He was also heavily drunk. That's right; I was killed by a stupid drunk who probably didn't even get his license yet.

But going back to the crash, to the death of a high school student who didn't think he'd die at the young age of seventeen, to my death. I was riddled with surprise, disbelief, bewilderment, shock, agony and so many other emotions it'd be too damn hard to identify every single one of them right now but the most important two would most likely be that I felt confused, overwhelmed by the dire situation and a sting of hatred.

I felt like a part of me had ripped, had died off right when my body had, my physical one anyway. It was insane to believe that my life was over right then and there. And I started to go into denial. I started to wander around the city, thinking I was just dreaming.

But how could I have?

I had such hard evidence where I stood. That's what you must be thinking right? I think I knew that deep down inside me, that I really was dead and it wasn't a dream, it wasn't a nightmare and it wouldn't go away. I mean, I saw the car, I saw my body, I had heard the screech, I had felt the impact, I noticed the blood, I saw all the police cars, I heard the sirens and I couldn't get past the fact that I was floating but there another part of me, a small one, that didn't want this to be true, it didn't want to accept the fact that I couldn't face my family and the very few friends that I had.

Then I found myself at the house my step-father lived at with my innocent little sister and for the first time since I was taken in, I felt a sting in my eye, saw a tear dripping down my cheek in a window. It looked funny though, felt funny because I never thought that a spirit had a reflection. But there I was in the window, silver hair flailing out as usual, narrow silver eyes in that forlorn expression everyone told me I had and a frown in place, looking so normal as usual, like nothing happened, like I didn't get hit by a car at all.

I then clenched my hands as hard as I could and gritted my teeth in pain and agony, watching with astonishment and maybe hatred when I saw them bleed. How could a ghost feel pain, bleed like normal and look like they haven't died just then? That was what I had thought, what I didn't understand. I felt so normal, still alive, and yet at the same time, different, dead. The thing that wasn't right about that reflection was the facts that it shown me floating, shown my feet never touching the ground, couldn't touch the ground and also shown everything else around me through me, like I wasn't really there, like I was transparent.

It wasn't fair.

I knew that I was dead, but how can fate be so cruel? I was supposed to die at an old age at a hospital, supposed to have gotten married, smiled at my sister and find out about my biological family, supposed to have told my step-father, "Thank you for taking care of me," traveled across the world, and do all those things people would dream of in my life. It wasn't fair. There I was, looking so alive and usual with all my emotions in tact, being able to feel pain and bleeding as if I was still in my body, reflecting off the window.

Why was this happening to me? I remember that was what ran through my mind, over and over again. Why me? I had so many questions, I felt so confused. And then I thought of the car and the accident and that drunk who had no right on the road. Still confused, I remember that I made the worst choice I could possibly have made. I wanted that man, that teenager, that useless trash off the streets, off the face of the planet, somewhere where he wouldn't be able to drive again, somewhere where no one could get killed by him.

My worst choice in my life was having that same man who killed me, die. It was my revenge. The mere thought of him drove me into hatred, onto a path I could never turn back from. And I knew that if my sister was here, if she knew, if she could see me, she would have shouted, she would have protested and I would have only pushed her back, pushed her farther away from me so she couldn't get hurt.

I floated back to the scene of the crash then and noticed the reporters doing their job and the crowd of people on the streets and it made me hate even more. The way those people took death so lightly, the way all their eyes lit up on the chance of seeing something as grim as death, as cruel as fate had on a human, and getting a chance of being watched on television just made me want to puke, want to tell them this was not a game. I felt a feeling of something in the pit of my stomach suddenly.

It was that feeling of dread.

Pretty soon my only family would be aware of this incident, of my death. And at that moment a million questions popped up. How would they take it? Would they laugh? Would they cry? Would they be shocked, go into denial? Would they be sad? Or would they be happy? There were so many questions. So many that I thought I would burst, that my mind would shut down. My life was over.

Completely.

And then I saw the man I was looking for, saw him in a different light. His head was bowed, black hair covering his face and I couldn't tell if he was happy with the outcome of his actions or regretted my death to its fullest. But I still hated him, hated him with such a great passion, hated him like no other before and at that moment I lunged down, not caring for the world or even myself and definitely not for the future.

After all, what kind of future would a dead teenager have? What kind could they, could I live in?

The one I really wanted, really dreamed of was taken from me. It was taken from me by that man, by that drunk and I could not forgive him. But as I floated down towards him, thinking I could do something, anything to take his life like he had to mine, something shocking happened, something I never thought possible. A brilliant white light shone in front of me which was the thing that stopped my useless attack, halted my descent to whatever would have awaited for me.

I stood there in the air, confused. The light then diminished and what appeared in its place surprised me even more. It, no I should probably describe that 'it' as a he, was the thing, the one that changed my life forever. He looked as human as I was but more. He was beautiful in appearance wise and I was speechless. He had the fragile face of an angel but something told me he was something else.

When his eyes opened to stare at me, I froze. Even though he had an angel-like smile, nice soft looking brown hair and a white robe on, his eyes didn't look bright. They didn't look as I imagined them to look. They looked like eyes that didn't belong on an angel. Those red eyes of his looked so grim, so dead, so emotionless and so chilling that made me shiver involuntarily.

His eyes, his blood-shot eyes looked like devil eyes.

And when he spoke, his tone was icy, was frigid and I stared at him in shock, in wonder. How could such an angel hold eyes of hatred? They reminded me of another pair of eyes that I would see when staring at my reflection. That beautiful angel had eyes just like my own and I felt entranced.

"Zero Kiryuu, that is your name, is it not?"

His voice was deep and gentle when he asked. I couldn't believe that he was speaking in that sort of tone, that tone that seemed riddled with child-like curiosity, anxiety and impatience but at the same time, gentleness. He didn't seem cruel, wasn't cruel and I believed in that voice.

"Yes."

I replied with a same gentle voice as he did and he only nodded. He let out his hand as if he wanted me to take it and I looked down in unhidden surprise. No one had ever done something like that to me before in the life I had lived besides my one and only sister, my one comfort, the only one who seemed to care for me in the world. She was Yuki.

He must have noticed my hesitation because when I looked up, he gave me a knowing smile, a flashing smile. Something in that smile told me that it was okay, that his intentions were good and couldn't do any more harm to me.

I took it.

"Where are we going?"

I asked the question that kept going through my mind as we traveled, as we floated upward, farther and farther away from the crime scene, from the killer and my body. He looked at me with an unreadable expression on his face and I looked back, stared back with the same leveled intensity in my own eyes. For a minute which felt like an eternity, we only stared at each other, though never pausing in our travel to whatever place he wanted to lead me to.

Finally, he was the one who turned away.

"To the judgment hall," was all he said.

And at that moment, I realized that it only took his voice to calm me down, to let out my hatred. I had forgotten all about my revenge when he came along. And then I clenched my hand into a tight fist, the hand that wasn't holding with dear life onto his hand in confused bewilderment. He must have noticed that too because he murmured into my ear, something I didn't understand but whatever it was, it made me feel relaxed again.

It gave me a feeling that seemed so strange and unrecognizable to me. I had never had someone who could calm me with only one or two words. Even my little sister, Yuki couldn't do that to me. But here I was, dead and in the hands of a stranger who had such control over my very emotions in the palm of his hand, traveling to whatever place that the dead spirits had to go to.

What kind of strange power did he have?

To make me let go of any emotion I was currently feeling, to control what I thought was like controlling my very being, my very existence. He made me feel so small, like a puppet to him and maybe I was but I didn't like that. I hated the feeling of not being in control of my thoughts or something I was supposed to have control over.

He was just a stranger.

"I don't understand," I found myself blurt out.

He didn't stop, didn't look my way. But out of the corners of my eyes, I could see a smirk take place on his fragile face and I let loose a growl, a growl that dared him to continue to smile like that, to continue to make me feel like I wasn't in control. I hated that feeling of helplessness and I wondered did he know that?

Was he doing it on purpose?

"I know."

I paused; looking at his face, searching for something that I knew wasn't there. He was an angel, I kept reminding myself. I wanted to focus something other than my growing hatred, hatred that I never knew I had, hatred that was started by my killer and now bigger because of this annoying stranger. I felt like an animal, a beast that was mad at its owner, at its master.

Why didn't I get anything?

Why was life turning out to be so confusing, so complicated, so wrong?

"Then explain," I said as calmly as I could.

I had stopped in the middle of our departure and tugged him down with me. Face to face with each other, I knew he was annoyed but I was also beyond irritated. And it didn't help that he seemed so much like me, like I was staring at my own reflection, only with a different body. He radiated the same annoyance, the same impatience and his eyes, his red eyes made him seem much older than his body gave him off to be.

That was the only difference.

"What do you want to know?" He sighed.

I glared at him. I wanted to know everything. I wanted to scream out that my death was a big mistake, that I wasn't supposed to die this early. I wanted to tell him that I hated him, that I didn't want to pass on to the next life or where ever the dead goes. It wasn't right. I didn't want this, I didn't wish for this.

I never cared for my life, I knew.

I never cared about anything.

But I never realized how hard it was to the ones who died. I never realized that they would have been wracked with so many emotions. And when I looked into his eyes, I felt a pang of guilt. I felt it creep up in me, twist my bones until I jerked around a little to try and cover the jabbing pain. Why didn't I care?

Humans never care until something is taken away from them.

That's how humans work. They never realize the things they have until those things aren't there anymore. They would be left with an empty feeling and that was how I felt. I felt like I hated the world and at the same time, guilty for not realizing it sooner, until it was just too late.

"I want to know everything," my voice sounded so dead that it surprised him and even me.

And then he nodded and sat Indian style in the air, right in front of me.

"Very well. I guess I'll start at the beginning. My name is Kaname Kuran and I am a soul keeper."

I looked at him and frowned, "A soul keeper?"

His eyes flashed a darker red for a second. It was only a second and I barely caught it but I still caught it. I froze in slight fear, in obvious dread but he was back to himself, back to intense red eyes that stared me down. And his lips lifted into a light smirk as he explained in two words.

"Grim Reaper."

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A/N: I know this story is really different, which includes the point of view but I couldn't take this story off my mind. I tried but I couldn't and my mind didn't want the story to be in third point of view either. It's weird so this is what I came up with. I like the idea though, I really do and I hope you guys did too. I'm also in the progress of another story that wasn't on my bio that focuses on Kaname. The pairing is the same as always: Zero and Kaname so don't worry.

Here's the summary if anyone's interested at all:

AU: They had once been friends. But when a large family massacre issued, one of them is left without any of his memories or a family. Now reunited ten years later, can an old friendship be rekindled? Kaname-centered story. Kaname X Zero

The title is called Once Friends.

So yeah, thanks for reading and please review to tell me what you think of this story so far. Thank you!